Sea Watch Wednesday December 8, 2010

GEESE!

Two of the dozens of flocks of Geese that came by Avalon today. The photo on the left depicts what a lot of them looked like during the morning, before the flight markedly shifted from Canada Geese to Snow Goose. The right photo was taken in the afternoon and is a pretty standard depiction of what the Goose breakdown was in the afternoon (4,040 Snows- 343 Canadas during the final 3 hours)

Duck, duck, goose anyone? Actually it was more like goose, goose, goose at Avalon today. From the start of the count there were flocks of both Canada and Snow Goose going by the seawatch today. It started off as just a good movement of Geese, dominated in the early going by Canadas, but the breakdown shifted to mostly Snows by midday and then increasing in numbers building to a crescendo of over 3,000 Snow Geese over the final two hours. Considering that this two-hour total was more Snow Geese than we tallied all of last season at the Seawatch, it was indeed a big day. Of course, being Cape May, there wasn't just one storyline. A couple of interesting ducks came in and landed in front of the seawatch, including a Horned Grebe and a Common Goldeneye:

This spiffy Common Goldeneye dropped into the area and spent some time hanging around this morning. Bill and head shape and bill color (extent of yellow) are the main distinguishing field marks to differentiate COGO from Barrow's Goldeneye in this plumage.

The aural sensations at seawatch continue to multiply, as male Long-tailed Ducks are now singing and doing some halfhearted courting just off the seawall (this in addition to the constant whirring of Surf Scoter wings). Gull-wise Ring-billed and Bonaparte's were going by in good numbers throughout the day. Mallards were moving in good numbers, outnumbering American Black Ducks for one of the few times this season. Another strong showing was put forth by Redheads today, once again. This is turning out to be a well above average for them at Avalon, and they came by in four different groups today: 9 w/ Aythya sp., 3 w/ Lesser Scaup, 1 w/ Lesser Scaup, and most surprisingly 1 w/ American Black Ducks:

Normally Redhead are either in pure flocks or with other individuals of their own Genus (Aythya). This confused adult male however, flew by with a group of American Black Ducks this afternoon.

Less sharp, but showing the color really well.

Steve Bauer took this photo of these spiffy male Common Eiders out in front of the Seawatch today.

Location: Avalon Seawatch
Observation date: 12/8/10
Notes:
Number of species: 45

Snow Goose 5274
Brant (Atlantic) 18
Canada Goose 1926
American Wigeon 6
American Black Duck 18
Mallard 58
Green-winged Teal 7
Redhead 14
Greater Scaup 20
Lesser Scaup 11
Aythya sp. 34
Common Eider 4
Surf Scoter 82
White-winged Scoter 7
Black Scoter 10
Surf/Black Scoter 26
scoter sp. 10
Long-tailed Duck 77
Bufflehead 7
Common Goldeneye 1
Red-breasted Merganser 44
merganser sp. 1
duck sp. 33
Red-throated Loon 516
Common Loon 2
Horned Grebe 1
Northern Gannet 277
Double-crested Cormorant 54
Great Blue Heron 2
Turkey Vulture 5
Bald Eagle 4
Red-tailed Hawk 2
Killdeer 1
Sanderling 2
Purple Sandpiper 22
Dunlin 4
Bonaparte's Gull 520
Ring-billed Gull 527
Herring Gull 984
Great Black-backed Gull 3
Rock Pigeon 20
Mourning Dove 1
Red-breasted Nuthatch 1
American Robin 2
European Starling 45
Dark-eyed Junco 1
Red-winged Blackbird 1
Boat-tailed Grackle 1
American Goldfinch 2
House Sparrow 20