3 Snowies, 3 Scoters at Pere Marquette

Hoping to keep my competition numbers respectable with the better birders in Chip Francke's December competition, I strolled the Muskegon Lake Nature Preserve after breakfast (recording nothing unusual) and then drove to the Ovals (Channel and South Breakwall at Pere Marquette Park) to see if Chip had left any snowies from yesterday.  And he had!  

Jim Zervos, a couple from Zeeland, a few other folks and I were able to see two Snowy Owls near the end of the south breakwall -- one bird mostly black except for its face -- and a whiter but not pure white bird on the rocks along the south side of the north wall.  We suspect there was another on the north side based on the attention of some birders over there at something not too far from shore on the north side of that wall.  Checking eBird later may give the answer.

A male and two female White-winged Scoters were swimming in the Channel, and I'm pretty sure I heard a Northern Flicker over by the houses on the east side, but didn't count it.

- Ric