But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself. Before the Avalon turned into a Winter Wonderland, there were still (as usual) migrating animals of the feathered variety. There were two obvious highlights, both initially found sitting on the water. The first was a Razorbill found sitting on the water by visiting birder (from Florida) Andy Bankert, and it was not only a good bird for the seawatch, but a life bird for Andy:
A bit later on, a bird which is extremely unusual at the seawatch, much more so than Razorbill, was found sitting on the water:
This Pied-billed Grebe was likely pushed off whatever body of freshwater it had been inhabiting by the recent freeze, and may have had no alternative but to plop down in Townsend's Inlet.And then of course the weather rolled in, and even the now-local Horned Grebes were hunched up to guard against it:
As soon as the snow rolled in visibility dropped way down, and the second to last hour saw a whopping 0 birds counted:
Total Individuals Counted: 2,839
Location: Avalon Seawatch
Observation date: 12/16/10
Number of species: 41
Snow Goose 124
Brant (Atlantic) 20
Canada Goose 226
goose sp. 160
American Black Duck 19
Mallard 29
Greater Scaup 43
Lesser Scaup 14
Greater/Lesser Scaup 4
Aythya sp. 6
Surf Scoter 314
White-winged Scoter 7
Black Scoter 224
Surf/Black Scoter 224
scoter sp. 730
Long-tailed Duck 121
Bufflehead 6
Common Goldeneye 7
Hooded Merganser 2
Red-breasted Merganser 92
duck sp. 132
Red-throated Loon 39
Common Loon 10
Pied-billed Grebe 1
Horned Grebe 8
Northern Gannet 1
Double-crested Cormorant 4
Great Cormorant 2
Great Blue Heron 1
Turkey Vulture 1
Cooper's Hawk 1
Ruddy Turnstone 4
Red Knot 2
Sanderling 6
Purple Sandpiper 70
Bonaparte's Gull 117
Ring-billed Gull 94
Herring Gull 57
Great Black-backed Gull 1
Razorbill 1
Rock Pigeon X
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling X
Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored) 4
Northern Cardinal 4
Boat-tailed Grackle X
House Sparrow X
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