After a lovely Saturday for the Christmas Bird Count, rained all day Sunday in Erie County, PA; on-and-off moderate rain continues into Monday morning, with a winter storm warning in effect for Monday evening/night.
Waterfowl migration is in full swing at/around Presque Isle State Park, so time to check in (again) on the ducks. Lake Erie remains ice-free = many ducks regularly seen far out of the lake. These long-distance shots generally N/NW from Beach Nos. 3/4 area, probably mostly Scaup (greater/lesser) and Merganser:
See below for sample duck count analysis.
Several of Red-breasted Merganser @ Lake Erie breakwater:
Ruddy Duck pictures above (at Beach No. 11) are from a Sunday, hence no duck hunters. Otherwise flocks of ducks wouldn’t be seen this close to shore at this location this time of year; Thompson Bay (inc. Beach No. 11) = popular for duck hunting. (The Bufflehead was startled by someone arriving to beach fish.)
While many American Black Duck look quite Mallard-like, the following on Niagara Pond are nicely dark/black-ish:
Back to “ducks on the lake”/duck counting on Lake Erie. Recent eBird reports indicate regular passings of multiple species of ducks in the tens-of-thousands per “counting period” (e.g., a person counting for a given period of time). Following is one example of the magnitude; shots taken recently off Sunset Point/Budny Beach area, probably mostly Scaup:
Crop/detail from that same shot:
In the first shot above, software analysis = 2974 ducks +/- 100. So figure 3000 ducks in that one shot alone. “Squiggle trace” view showing counted duck locations:
