I spent a good part of the day looking for ducks and geese in various water bodies around the metro area.  Starting in my "backyard" at Lake Como, I found 4 Cackling Geese among a few hundred Canada Geese, plus a Gadwall, and several Shovelers.  Other sites and birds included:

Lake Vadnais - LONG-TAILED DUCK - still present in the southeast corner of the lake; however it and the numerous goldeneyes were tucked up far against the north shore of the southeast portion (right along the walking/biking trail, so it was pretty difficult to find and I had to scope through the ducks for a good 10 minutes before spotting it.  Other ducks in the southeast part of the lake included Canvasbacks (~25), a few Redheads, Buffleheads, and Lesser Scaup, plus hundreds of Ring-necked Ducks.  I didn't see the solitaire mentioned in the previous post, but I wasn't looking for it either!

Lake of the Isles - Empty, no scoters, just Mallards and Canada Geese

Lake Calhoun - Mostly empty, except for two Horned Grebes

Lake Harriet - Canvasbacks (3), Red-breasted Mergansers (6), Ruddy Ducks (2), and a fly-over of 45 Tundra Swans.

Old Cedar Avenue Bridge to Bass Ponds, MN River National Wildlife Refuge - Trumpeter Swans (12) and nearly every dabbler, including numerous Green-winged Teal, Wigeons, Pintail, a couple American Black Ducks, etc.  There were >100 Tundra Swans resting in Long Meadow Lake farther north towards the Bass Ponds area.  Passerines included Northern Shrike, a single Rusty Blackbird, a late Golden-crowned Kinglet, and a fly-over group of ~80 Snow Buntings.

It was a good day for waterfowl in the area as a total of 22 species of ducks/geese/swans were found.  The only "common" ducks not seen were Blue-winged Teal, Greater Scaup, and Common Merganser.

Scott Loss
St Paul



      

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