I spent about 2.5 hours at Montrose this morning, March 19, most of that
\ntime looking at the lake. The visibility was good and there were birds
\nto look at, both on the water and flying around. Except for blackbirds
\nand Robins, landbirds were scarce. My highlights (not a complete list):<\/p>\n
Gadwall – ~12
\nAmerican Wigeon – 5
\nRedhead – ~30
\nLesser Scaup – ~20
\nGreater Scaup – 1
\nWhite-winged Scoter – ~20
\nCommon Goldeneye – ~12
\nBufflehead – ~7
\nCommon Merganser – 1 adult male flying north
\nRed-breasted Merganser – ~300
\nRed-throated Loon – 2 flying north, both in basic type plumage
\nCommon Loon – 1 alternate plumaged bird flying north
\nHorned Grebe – ~50, most on the lake but a few in the harbor
\nEared Grebe – 1 alternate plumaged bird on the lake
\nGreat Black-backed Gull – 1 first cycle
\nGlaucous\/Iceland Gull – 1 near adult flying north<\/p>\n
The Eared Grebe was a big surprise. I tried to turn it into something
\nmore expected but everything about the bird said Eared Grebe. Somewhat
\nsurprisingly it was in full alternate plumage; most of the Horned Grebes
\ntoday were still in basic plumage or transitioning into alternate
\nplumage. I also had a meadowlark in the Dunes that looked good for a
\nWestern but I let it go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I spent about 2.5 hours at Montrose this morning, March 19, most of that time looking at the lake. The visibility was good and there were birds to look at, both on the water and flying around. Except for blackbirds and Robins, landbirds were scarce. My highlights (not a complete list): Gadwall – ~12 American […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[70,162,72,117,105,131,88,116,31],"class_list":["post-1667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-bird-reports","tag-best-spring-migration-days","tag-eared-grebe","tag-great-black-backed-gull","tag-grebes","tag-gulls","tag-loons","tag-red-throated-loon","tag-waterfowl","tag-white-winged-scoter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1667"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2639,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1667\/revisions\/2639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}