Back River Ducks: 02/22/98
Eugene J. Scarpulla (gscarp@erols.com)
Sun, 22 Feb 1998 21:09:21 -0500
This winter while conducting my weekly Hart-Miller Island bird surveys,
I have begun cooperating with the University of Connecticut's Greater
Scaup Research Project. So far, this has been an interesting study that
is raising interesting questions.
For four weekends, there has been a large raft of unidentified ducks in
Back River off of the Black Marsh Wildlands. I could see the raft as I
traveled by boat to and from Hart-Miller Island in the early morning and
late afternoon. They could only be seen as dark silhouettes on the
water. (This raft is not associated with Hart-Miller Island and this
data is not reported as part of that study.)
Today, February 22, 1998, Rick Blom, Debbie Terry, and I hiked into the
Black Marsh Wildlands area of North Point State Park to a spot that
overlooks Back River where the large raft of unidentified ducks has been
these four weekends. The estimated number today was 50,000 LESSER SCAUP,
5000 RUDDY DUCK, 3000 CANVASBACK, and 6 GREATER SCAUP.
Interestingly it appears that the scaup are segregating, Greater around
Hart-Miller Island (as many as 35,000) and Lesser in Back River. The
distance between the two rafts is only about one mile. I'm curious as to
why the Greater Scaup differ spatially from the other three species. I'm
also curious as to what might be the segregating mechanism - salinity?,
water temperature?, water depth?, food preference?, something else?.
Interesting questions.
Gene Scarpulla
Towson, Maryland
gscarp@erols.com