[va-bird] Waterfowl at Leesylvania SP, 1/26

I took my son to Leesylvania State Park this morning to view the eagles,
and were treated to a fantastic display of birds.  Open pools of water
have appeared just off shore around the pier, and there were thousands
of ducks within very close range.  Further north were other areas of
open water also jammed with ducks.  The stars were a dozen goldeneye
about 100 feet from shore.  Fantastic looks.  We could easily hear the
characteristic whistling when some of them flew off.  There were
thousands of lesser scaup, with good numbers of greater scaup mixed in. 
This provided about the best opportunity I have ever had to compare
these two species at close range.  We could even see th green and puple
gloss on their heads.  As for the eagles, the numbers were similar to
what Laura Catterton reported yesterday, somewhere around 40, scattered
on the ice up and down the river. We also saw a single lesser
black-backed gull swimming in the water.

Here is a list of the waterfowl seen:
tundra swan - 5 sitting on the ice with 2 eagles
canada goose
black duck - several hundred sitting on ice flows
mallard - 2
common goldeneye - over a dozen, both males and females
bufflehead - 10
greater scaup - about 75
lesser scaup - thousands
ring-necked duck - 1
canvasback - 2
ruddy duck - hundreds
common merganser - thousands
reb-breasted merganser - 20
hooded merganser - 6

Marc Ribaudo
Woodbridge, VA

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