Interesting story about the duck being eaten.
Yesterday my Field Natural History class saw a
female green-wnged teal and female bufflehead in
the main pond at Huntley. I wonder if one of
these two is now missing. I'll be curiously
watching the Huntley Monday bird-list.
By the way, our "best" birds at Huntley yesterday
AM were an american pipit and a beautiful pair of
hooded mergansers.
I hope you have a great week.
Fred A
--- Philip Kline <pgkline_uk@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
__________________________________________________
I took my Mum and a friend to Huntley and Dyke
Marsh
today for an afternoon walk. Both places were
pretty
quiet but it was a gorgeous day out there.
At Huntley, I had the rather morbid "privilege"
of
seeing what I can only assume was a snapping
turtle
taking out a small duck. From the platform I
noticed
a duck splashing about some 50 feet from shore.
I
thought at first that it was just flapping
about and
washing its feathers, but I noticed after a few
seconds that its head was not coming up.
Anyway,
after watching it for a few more seconds it
stopped
moving and a pool of blood started spreading
out
around it. I couldn't tell what the duck was;
it was
likely a ruddy based on its size and the tail.
It was
then pulled under water for a while, but then
resurfaced upside down. I guess the turtle
decided it
wasn't that hungry after all.
After that display, the rest of the walk around
Huntley was pretty uneventful. There was a
nice
juvenile red-shouldered hawk sitting on a snag
at the
north end of the marsh watching a few bluebirds
flying
around. I spoke to the ranger? at the visitor
center
and he told me he had seen a ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK
this
morning. He proceeded to talk about red-tails
and
red-shouldereds, which led me to believe his ID
was
likely correct. This seems early though. He
also had
several stories of snapping turtle victims
including,
believe it or not, a great egret! He also
recounted a
story of a snapping turtle trying to raid a
Canada
goose's nest only for the mother to proceed to
peck
and beat in over the head with her wings until
it
rereated.
Dyke Marsh had more birds but less drama. A
large
raft of about 250-300 coots was feeding in the
channel
at the end of the boardwalk trail. A couple of
greater yellowlegs were also feeding in the
channel.
There were quite a few ducks at the mouth of
Hunting
Creek too. I saw two rafts totalling over 400
ruddies
fairly close in with about 100 lesser scaup and
2
buffleheads mixed in. I also saw a lone tundra
swan
in the main channel with a bunch of Canada
geese. A
few great egrets are still around near the
stone
bridge. I also saw 2 Forster's terns from the
boardwalk. That's about it.
Philip Kline
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