We had a male Eurasian Wigeon on yesterday's CBC. We observed the bird
mixed with a small group of American Wigeon, Gadwall, and Ring-necked
Ducks on a farm pond north of Leesburg, at about 8 AM. My eBird list
is for "Raspberry Falls Golf & Hunt Club", but this pond is not on the
country club's property, though that is where we were standing when we
scoped the pond.
The pond comes up as Lazorchak Farm in google. The farm obviously is
private property and Raspberry Falls is as well. The subsector leader
has been able to obtain permission for us to go on that club property
to do the CBC once each year and, usually when the temp is 20F, we are
not in anyone's way. This year we arrived a bit before 7am to check
for owls and 5 minutes later, 30 minutes before sunrise, there was a
golfer on the first tee in the misting rain.
All this by way of saying that I am not sure if there is any possible
publicly accessible viewing point for the pond. We were on private
property by special permission when we observed the bird. Please
respect the rights and privacy of these property owners.
In general, for our north Leesburg and Whites Ferry subsector, the
waterfowl species count and overall numbers were way down. There was
active hunting in the area on the Potomac, which did not help.
Cheers,
Russ Taylor
