Two Muskegon Birding Reports from Lizzy

October 27 Email:

Report for 10/09/16 is going to be brief, but just wanted to say that we had four Snow Geese in a massive raft of congregating Canada Geese. 

Report for 10/27/16 more information-packed, so hold onto your hat. 

Spent a good majority of the time focused on scanning the center dike and the lagoons on either side of it.  The center dike had plenty of activity that day.

Canada Goose numbers have definitely jumped up, as congregation continues to pick up speed.  We estimated roughly 2,000 geese. They were all gathered on both sides of the center dike. 

We had five Trumpeter Swans in the south end, at very close quarters. Good enough to get awesome pics. 

Duck numbers were up as well.  We were readily impressed by the massive amount of Ring-necked Ducks, Scaup, and assorted other species. 

We ended up tallying 15 duck species, 12 of which we found in those lagoons. The only ones we didn't find in the lagoons were Green-winged and Blue-winged Teal, and the pair of Wood Ducks. 

Wood Duck - 2
Gadwall - 32
American Black Duck - 50
Mallard - 350
Blue-winged Teal - 3
Northern Shoveler - 500
Northern Pintail - 1
Green-winged Teal - 19
Canvasback - 10
Redhead - 101
Ring-necked Duck - 250
Greater Scaup - 75
Lesser Scaup - 75 
Bufflehead - 2
Hooded Merganser - 2
Ruddy Duck - 4,000

Amazingly, if you calculate that, we saw roughly 5,448 individual ducks in both lagoons. That is a very rough estimate due to the fact that I didn't put in the teals or the Wood Ducks, and the fact that there were other Mallards scattered throughout smaller cells too. Same with the Ruddy Ducks surprisingly. Duck numbers were very impressive. Point proven. :D

On the shorebird side of things, late migrants started showing up. Killdeer numbers were starting to rise again. We went from having no Killdeer to having 12, all in one little puddle! We also had some other good shorebirds.

Killdeer - 12
Dunlin - 7 (we definitely were expecting to see some of these guys)
White-rumped Sandpiper - 1
Pectoral Sandpiper - 8
Lesser Yellowlegs - 1

Pretty impressive shorebird numbers, all in one little body of water. And a flock of European Starlings with a Bonaparte's Gull still hanging around.

On the gull side of things, as mentioned, we had one stray Bonaparte's Gull with the flock of shorebirds and starlings. Also, near the dump we had an adult Lesser Black-backed Gull (which I'm still wondering if it is a hybrid LBBG x HEGU or not, due to the weird head streaking, not typically shown in adult LBBGs) ...

... and in one of the dried out concrete cells, I had a gull that I put down as a Thayer's/Iceland Gull, since I didn't get the best look at it, but I noticed the lack of black on the primaries, not fit for a HEGU or RBGU.

Although Eastern Bluebird's aren't much of a highlight, just thought that I'd add the fact that we had an unusually high count of bluebirds in one day.  20 EABL, one big group in the south end, in which we think was either a family group, or just a group congregating. Other numerous individuals scattered throughout different locations. 

American Pipits were definitely flocking in, both at the center dike, and in a field near the model airplane airport. 85 total. 

And we found one of my target birds: Snow Buntings! Stumbled into a flock of about five, in which they preceeded to hungrily attack a nearby weed, and I got pics of three of them. 

We headed down the center dike more and stumbled into another large flock. Ended up with 19. 

We had a lone American Tree Sparrow with a few Chipping Sparrows on the south end, and a good flock of Dark-eyed Juncos (12).  Oh, and let me not forget about our 14 Vesper Sparrows. Quite impressive numbers! 

I'll attach some pics.  Pick and choose freely. :)

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Have a nice day, and talk to you soon!

Lizzy Kibbey (Duck Wizard)