{"id":3462,"date":"2020-03-20T16:42:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T21:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/?p=3462"},"modified":"2020-03-21T08:43:02","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T13:43:02","slug":"lots-of-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/lots-of-ducks\/","title":{"rendered":"Ducks (lots of ’em), March 20, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Northern<\/a>

Northern Shovelers (click to see the larger version)<\/p><\/div>\n

A strong flight of ducks took place at Montrose on March 20. In about an hour and a half of lakewatching I saw the following<\/p>\n

Wood Duck – 30
\nBlue-winged Teal – 6
\nNorthern Shoveler – 200
\nGadwall – 15
\nAmerican Wigeon – 8
\nNorthern Pintail – 15
\nGreen-winged Teal – 120
\nRing-necked Duck – 40
\nGreater Scaup – 15
\nLesser Scaup – 100
\nWhite-winged Scoter – 2
\nLong-tailed Duck – 1, continuing female in the harbor
\nBufflehead – 10
\nCommon Goldeneye – 20
\nHooded Merganser – 8
\nCommon Merganser – 3
\nRed-breasted Merganser – 200<\/p>\n

We usually get a day or 2 each spring when large numbers of ducks move north like this. The numbers of Northern Shovelers and Green-winged Teal were most impressive. Interestingly, the winds were from the north and strong, which means these birds were flying into a headwind. I also had 2 flyby Common Loons, my first of the year.<\/p>\n

In the above photo, note the spoon-shaped bills of the Northern Shovelers, a field mark that makes them easy to identify, even in flight.<\/p>\n

eBird Checklist<\/strong>
\nMarch 20, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A strong flight of ducks took place at Montrose on March 20. In about an hour and a half of lakewatching I saw the following Wood Duck – 30 Blue-winged Teal – 6 Northern Shoveler – 200 Gadwall – 15 American Wigeon – 8 Northern Pintail – 15 Green-winged Teal – 120 Ring-necked Duck – […]<\/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":[33,116,31],"class_list":["post-3462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spring-bird-reports","tag-long-tailed-duck","tag-waterfowl","tag-white-winged-scoter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462","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=3462"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3462\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theorniphile.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}