Lake Brittle and Manasas
KurtCapt87@aol.com
Wed, 13 Jan 1999 18:57:43 EST
Folks,
Scanned the two lakes and found a few things of general interest. At L.
Manasas, counted 172 Common Mergansers, 20 or so Black Ducks, a few Mallards,
and 4 Pied-billed Grebes. Perched on the old eagle nest was one adult Bald
Eagle and 50 feet away in a snag was another adult Bald Eagle. Let me suggest
that we have a courtship going on! Lets hope this year the eggs are fertile.
(The nest is easily scoped from the top of the dam.)
At L. Brittle, another adult Bald Eagle was flying about, giving the Canadas
conniptions. Also present were a few Hooded Mergs and Bufflehead, 20 or so
Ruddys, a ton o' Mallard, couple of Black Duck, 18 Green-winged Teal and a
Horned Grebe (the latter being a bit unusual for this spot). And amongst the
R.B Gulls and Herring Gulls was the Lesser Black-backed Gull, probably the
same individual Todd and I spotted before given the similarity in the dark
streaking pattern on the side of the neck to the previous bird.
No luck finding the Red-morphed Red-tail Hawk, but while looking in the
general vicinity where the raptor was last reported this huge flock of Cedar
Waxwings and Robin flew over. At least 600 waxwings and 150-200 Robins in the
space of 10 minutes. And among some of the smaller passerines mixed in and
stirred up by this activity was a Chipping Sparrow, though Todd pointed out to
me that 10 Chippies were present earlier that morning at that location!
Kurt Gaskill, kurtcapt87@aol.com