The scaup are a week ahead of last year's first sightings (and last year's sightings felt early in comparison with preceding years). With the mild, dry winter we've had this year, though, it's no surprise to have open water this early. I have been hearing many reports of migrating ducks and white-fronted geese down at Wells Lake in Faribault in the past week or two, including this week's blog post by Dan Tallman. Last year we saw several white-fronted geese on March 19 at the Superior Drive pond.
I wasn't close enough to get decent photos today, but this photo of a lesser scaup (I believe it's a lesser, anyway) is one I took last year. It's a handsome duck, isn't it, with its blue bill, golden eye, and striking sections of black and white?
Today I also saw my first two American robins of the season, and yesterday my son spotted our first two red-winged blackbirds of the season.
Welcome, spring!
4 comments:
Ahh...its that time of year again! Happy Spring Birding!
Ducks already?! How lovely! Everything is still very, very frozen up north.
A nice post. Thanks for sharing.
I sure love the spring duck season, but it is so early this year that it's hard to process. Today, March 10, it got up to the mid-60s and we had several windows open at home. So unreal. When we first moved to southern Minnesota 20+ years ago, we were told to expect snow on the ground from Thanksgiving to Easter, and that used to be about right. Open windows in early March are really something.
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