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From: 
To: , , ,

Sent: 11/16/2010 10:40:03 A.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Ducks on the Bay, North Beach, 13-14 November

 

Hola,

 

I spent the weekend at our place on the Chesapeake Bay, which sits in Anne
Arundel County, just north of the Calvert County line.  On Saturday there
was as much duck activity, specifically scoters, as I have ever seen in my
eighteen years or so of watching from this property.  That isn't to say that
there were necessarily more ducks than I have ever seen, but there was
constant movement among them.  There were skeins flying both up and down the
bay; many were close to shore, many were distant.  This of course made it
difficult to get accurate counts.  I suspect they were stirred by hunters,
as the water between Holland Point and the Calvert line was being heavily
hunted.  

 

I did the best I could with numbers, and came up with the following for
Saturday:

 

Total ducks (and a few loons and such), about 3500-4000, all in Anne Arundel

 

Black Scoters, 2000-2500

Surf Scoters, 350

White-winged Scoters, 6

Scaup sp., 650

Bufflehead, 500

Mallard, 12 (all just along the shore, nibbling the barnacles on the pilings
of the piers)

Common Loons, 75

Double-crested Cormorants, 150, all flying

Pied-billed Grebe, 1

 

About the scaup.  There was no easy way to put numbers on them by species.
I would watch some groups fly that were pure Greater flocks, and some that
were pure Lesser (and usually smaller flocks).  When they would huddle in
rafts, they were also almost always one species or the other, when they were
close enough to get an honest ID.  I think Greaters outnumbered Lesser by
about four to one, but I wouldn't bet much on that. 

 

Also had three Forster's Terns, one Royal Tern (which I don't ever recall
seeing in mid-November at this location), a couple hundred Laughing Gulls,
200 Herring Gulls, 50 Great Black-backed Gulls, 30 Ring-billeds.  Single
Cooper's and Sharp-shinned Hawks came in from the bay; one adult Bald Eagle.
No Osprey.  

 

As fun at Saturday was, Sunday was dead, until late afternoon.  There were
very few skeins moving around in the morning.  A string of fifty here or
there, flying either up or down the bay.  Things were much more settled, and
perhaps because there were no hunters.  By mid-afternoon, a scaup raft was
forming a few hundred yards off my pier, and on my final count, it was about
2000.  This was a mixed flock, but the edge went to Greater, about six to
one.  The loons were still around, as was a single Pied-billed Grebe.  

 

Monday morning before heading home was very much like Sunday morning.   

 

Cheers, 

 

Todd Day

Jeffersonton, VA