Duck Dynasty

I decided to check out the St. Clair River to Corunna today. More ice since Wednesday due to the excessive cold weather and of course the Sombra ferry did not run long after Wednesday!  In fact it got stuck.

There was a large concentration of ducks at Sombra and a bit north.  Possibly in the neighbourhood of 25-30,000 there!  Here I found a large number of Long-tailed Ducks as well.  They spread out since that mild spell over a week ago and I estimated somewhere in the range of 10,000 around Sombra.

The centre of the river was filled with them and many were flying upstream and drifting back down.  Lots of noise too!

Canvasback

The bulk of the rest of the ducks was Canvasback followed by Redhead and others mixed in.  I estimated close to 30 White-winged Scoters in the Sombra area, but could have been more.  I could not get close to the big concentration of ducks right off Sombra.

Next stop was the outfall of CF Industries.  Here I saw two American Coots accompanied by at least 3 Gadwall.

I continued up to Guthrie Park at Corunna where there was another large concentration of ducks.  Probably at another 25,000 ducks between Stag Island and the mainland which were mostly Canvasback and Redhead.  Lots of Common Goldeneye here as usual.  A few White-winged Scoters were amongst them.  A couple of Gadwall were along the shoreline too.

I only saw one Ring-necked Duck here.  They have been unusually scarce on the river this winter.

I went back downstream to Sombra but did not see much different.

Great Black-backed Gull munching on merganser

Driving around inland there was not much to see, but I did come across a Snowy Owl on Smith Line east of the Kimball Sideroad.  It was a bit of a surprise, but likely one of the ones I had previously around Becher.

I went for a short walk at Moore WMA.  There was more activity than yesterday including several titmice, a couple of resident flickers, etc.  This Carolina Wren was rooting around the bank.