I spent about two hours this afternoon at Riverbend Park with Keith and
Christie Huffman looking at the waterfowl on the frozen Potomac. It was very
beautiful; there was lots of ice and there were lots of ducks. From the
observation platform the river was mostly frozen but way on the far side we
found some geese, a bunch of Common Mergansers, and four pairs of Hooded
Mergansers.
Downriver from there,,there was still a lot of ice and not a lot of waterfowl.
There were some geese, a single pair of Canvasbacks, probably 125 or so Coots,
maybe 40 or 50 Common Mergansers.
Upriver from the observation platform, up near where the path comes down from
the nature center to the River trail, there was a large unfrozen area in the
river and there must've been at least 1000 ducks and geese there. There were
lots of Canada geese, countless Mallards, 300 to 500 Ring-necked ducks, few
Scaup, lots of Bufflehead, many Common Mergansers, lots of Gadwall, some Black
Ducks, six or more Redhead, about the same number of Widgeon, some Canvasbacks,
and out in the middle of the group a large white Swan. As we were walking up
river, we had a group of six Tundra Swans flying downriver at treetop level, so
we were surprised to find the remaining Swan with the ducks and geese.
The bird had a black bill, so initially we thought it was another Tundra Swan.
We had two spotting scopes and a 12-Power pair of binoculars, so we could all
see the bird well. The more we looked at it, the more we thought it just
didn't look like a Tundra Swan. It didn't have the yellow on the lores by the
beak, but we knew that there were some black billed Tundra Swans. Mostly
the head and the bill looked wrong for a Tundra Swan. The head seemed larger
and more blocky than a tundra, and the bill was very long and very wide and
didn't have any the concaveness of a Tundra's bill. It was hard to judge size
not having a direct comparison, but the bird seemed larger than the Tundras I
remember seeing, and it had a very long neck. We decided that the bird was
most likely a Trumpeter Swan.
We are aware that there has been some controversy over a black- billed swan
seen in this area in the last two weeks. I will try to get back and take some
photographs if I can in the next couple of days. I have checked all the field
guides I have, including National Geographic and Sibley, and the Sibley guide
online, and the Trumpeter Swan Society online, and I believe that the bird we
saw today was a Trumpeter Swan.
In any event the river was very beautiful, and there were lots of wonderful
ducks and geese to look at.
Donald Sweig
Falls Church, Virginia
Sent from my iPad
