Yes, the Eurasian is still present along with his companion. I saw him
between 11:15am & 11:45am this morning. Unfortunately I made the mistake of
parking at the entrance of the lake where Christopher Farms Dr enters from
Holland Rd. I parked and scanned the lake seeing nothing as I made my way
down to the shoreline to study further. Well ! I flushed the poor things as
they were feeding on my side of the shore hidden by brush. I encourage anyone
going out to see this beauty to proceed slowly and try to hide behind the
large bush (centered at the lakes entrance) so you don't scare the living
daylights out of them like I did. Of course they took off flying to the
center of the lake. I took pictures but my telephoto is not THAT good to get
a close up. As the pair was swimming away I drove to the other side of the
lake in hopes they would swim right to me as I hid this time. Wrong..... So
back to the front of the lake...this time my approach was more cautious. They
stayed feeding on the right side of the lake near a Purple Martin house that
has been lowered for the season. They fed with a Mallard. There were no other
visible American Wigeons as I had hoped for to be able to compare the
females. The female paired with the male ( and they were definitely paired)
appeared to have a "warmer head" as Sibley's guide notes and their didn't
appear to be a noticeable distinction between head and neck. Unfortunately I
was not able to determine the differences in the gape area as pointed out in
Sibley's guide. I took about 5 pictures of the pair and IF they look like
anything other than DOTS on a picture will release them to anyone interested.
Karen Beatty
Virginia Beach, VA
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