Ducks and Grebes on Saturday

As this depressing winter weather continues, there was little to do today.  Road conditions were terrible, but I still headed up along the St. Clair as far as Corunna.  There was virtually no place to pull off even though there were lots of ducks and gulls to look at.  Luckily, the Shell parking lot at the mouth of Talfourd Creek had just been ploughed out.  I parked there to look at the birds.

Glaucous Gull

Many ducks were taking advantage of the warm water.

There was much waterfowl to sort through.

Lots of goldeneye, but no Barrow's or their hybrids.

I did find a hybrid though!  Although the duck never woke up the whole time, it was obviously a Redhead X Ring-necked. Visibility was not good, as usual.

I have seen this type of hybrid before and a couple had been seen at Sombra earlier in the winter.  They ducks do wander around, but one wonders how many are really out there.

There were many Bald Eagles along the river today.  Six were off Cundick Park at Sombra, and several others along the way.  I probably saw close to 20 even without stopping to look.

I was home well before noon, but went back out in mid afternoon to look around the Walpole Island bridge.  There has been open water south of the bridge all winter.  I expected to find the continuing Pied-billed Grebe (which I did), but as a bonus, a Horned Grebe was also present!  Once in a while, a Horned will show up around mid February somewhere in these parts.   We have also had Red-necked Grebes show up, but not yet this year.

I wanted to drive some backroads today, but that was completely out of the question.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring since the forecast now calls for freezing rain which not on the radar early this morning.  (I need to stop looking at these useless forecasts!).