Canvasbacks! - 11 Feb 2023
Clear skies and no winds greeted the morning. 24F temps made for an ideal bike ride at Pt. Mouillee. I arrived at Mouillee Creek at 8:15 am and had the place to myself.
Today I packed the scope and tripod in the outside pockets of a new Mindshift Backlight 36L backpack. I purchased this backpack as a travel backpack since it is large enough to carry my Sony 600 f/4 GM OSS lens along with two cameras and accessories. My plan is to pack the 200-600 f/5.6-6.3 G OSS and 100-400 f/4-5.6 plus 2 cameras, the Swarovski STX85 spotting scope, and digiscoping camera and binoculars when I head to South Carolina in March to visit Jack and Janet Volker for a couple of days of birding.
Today though, I was carrying the Sony 600/4 lens and Sony a9+40/2.5 lens on the Cotton Carrier harness with the backpack. I was bundled up w/o the BigPockets vest so I had the binoculars in my jacket pocket; this made it difficult to peddle because I was hitting the bins w/ my thighs. The digiscoping camera in the side holster was also being bumped enough that it kept popping out of the holster. So, I put the digiscoping camera in the center of the Cotton Carrier vest, and after cinching the backpack w/ the shoulder straps I was able to tuck the big lens into the harness w/o bumping with my legs. Perfect!
The inland ponds were starting to freeze again after several warm days of ice melt but they were empty and quiet. Only Canada Geese and Mute Swans were swimming in the open waters of the Humphries Unit.
But! Red-winged Blackbirds have started staging and singing their "Konk-la-RIIII" spring greeting! Song Sparrows and Northern Cardinals were also singing.
I rode the Middle Causeway to the dike separating Long Pond and Vermet Units and rode north to the North Causeway. There I was greeted by 10,000 - 20,000 Canvasbacks, Redheads and Greater Scaup. This is where the large rafts of ducks had gone after disappearing from the lake at Cove Point a few days earlier. Had the Sun not been so blinding I would have attempted to take a video for later counting. However, the birds were far out in the mouth of the Huron River and clustered in massive rafts.
Canvasbacks numbered up to 10,000+ while Redheads tended to swim toward the perimeter of the ½ mile long raft. When the far raft lifted off the majority of ducks were Greater Scaup! Another 5-10,000 birds!
Once the free-for-all ended I kept riding the North Causeway to the Lake Erie shoreline. Finally, I had the Sun to my side and could give my irises a rest. Lake Erie was largely free of waterfowl except for a few Canada Geese, Mallard and Common Mergansers. Where are the Common Goldeneye???
A flock of 4 Snow Buntings were calling and I looked up to see them flying overhead. I had hoped to find them at the north end of Cell 4 but the area was empty. As was the Vermet Unit except for a large congregation of several hundred Mute Swans. I did not see any Tundra Swans...
Cell 4 was still mostly frozen with small pockets of open water but they held no ducks.
As I looped around Cell 3 and rode the Lake Erie shoreline I scanned the rocks for a Purple Sandpiper, but only found the remnants of what little ice was left on the lake. It was all piled up along the sandy beach opposite Cell 3.Only four Herring Gulls were on the ice; I managed to photograph a first-winter and adult next to each other.
I walked the bike along the trail between Cells 2 and 3 hoping to kick up a Northern Harrier or a Short-eared Owl, but only found much of Cell 2 cleared of phragmites. I would see neither harrier nor owl this day.
The Humphries was open but did not hold any ducks. Only a half dozen Ring-billed Gulls graced what little ice remained along the shoreline of the Middle Causeway.
I did see a pair of Northern Pintail out in the Vermet among a large flock of Mallard but they were too far to photograph.
With little to see I rode the bike on the last remnants of frozen ground. As I approached the car an almost instantaneous thaw turned the dry, solid ground into wet, muddy ground. Luckily, I was close enough to only get partially covered in mud.
A beautiful morning with 10.08 miles covered.
Pte. Mouillee SGA (permit required Sep 1-Dec 15), Monroe, Michigan, US
Feb 11, 2023 8:15 AM - 10:35 AM
Protocol: Traveling
10.0 mile(s)
Checklist Comments: Clear skies, 24F, no wind.
15 species
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis) 65
Mute Swan (Cygnus olor) 120 Vermet Unit. Concentrated around Pelican Island. No Tundra Swans seen this day... Orange bills.
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) 124
Northern Pintail (Anas acuta) 2
Canvasback (Aythya valisineria) 10000 Massive flock at mouth of Huron River and Lake Erie. Photos/writeup at: https://birdingthroughglass.bl
Redhead (Aythya americana) 7000 Part of massive Canvasback/Redhead flock on Huron River at mouth to Lake Erie. Estimated 10:7 Can:Red in flocks. Conservative count.
Greater Scaup (Aythya marila) 5000 Conservative count. Along perimeter of Canvasback rafts that stretched half mile. See https://birdingthroughglass.bl
Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) 2000 Inland, Cell 4 large raft of mostly Lesser Scaup (peaked heads, purple, white on secondaries only).
Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) 25
Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) 6
Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) 4
Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) 4
Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia) 4
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) 12 Singing along N Causeway and Middle Causeway.
Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 4
View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S1
This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)
