Muskegon Lake Channel Counts: Feb. 13 - 14

Due to windy conditions persisting thru January, I have been able to conduct only a few waterbird counts along Lake Michigan since December. For most species the tallies have been fairly low anyway, although Long-tailed Ducks have been abundant as usual (with my best count being 10,470 from Kruse Park on January 15). With increasing ice cover Bald Eagles are becoming more numerous over and near Lake Michigan.

Today and yesterday I chose instead to make a couple careful surveys of the birds at Muskegon Lake Channel (ignoring those in Lake Michigan). Numbers were quite good. Here are my high counts from these two days:

Canada Goose - 5

Mute Swan - 4

Tundra Swan - 1

Mallard - 15

Redhead - 3

Greater Scaup - 143

Lesser Scaup - 22

Surf Scoter - 3

White-winged Scoter - 28

Long-tailed Duck - 59

Bufflehead - 6

Common Goldeneye - 166

Common Merganser - 57

Red-breasted Merganser - 70

Horned Grebe - 2

Bald Eagle - 1

Red-shouldered Hawk - 1

American Coot - 2

Ring-billed Gull - 88 (all adults)

Herring Gull - 97 (adults and immatures)

Glaucous Gull - 2 (adult and immature)

Great Black-backed Gull - 2 (adult and immature)

The immature Red-shouldered Hawk pictured above seemed a little dopey. Not only did it seem to be following me around and approaching closely while doing so, but it even tried landing on a rotating wind turbine (one of the vertical axis types) by the Coast Guard station.

Brian Johnson