An impressive flight of dabbling and bay ducks took place on the morning of March 2. This flight included numbers of Northern Pintail, American Wigeon, Redheads, and Canvasbacks, the latter uncommon at Montrose. Most of these birds were flying north into a strong headwind. This seems counterintuitive but is typical behavior for migrating spring ducks along the western shore of Lake Michigan.
Tag Archives: Northern Pintail
Snowy Owl and Waterfowl, March 15, 2022
A Snowy Owl was lounging on the end of the fishing pier at Montrose on March 15. We don’t see Snowies as often in the spring but we do get them occasionally. They have to go back north at some point and March is when we see most of these rebounding birds. Illinois experienced an impressive influx of Snowy Owls during the winter of 2021/2022. We even saw a few at Montrose.
March 15 was also an exciting day for waterfowl. Scores of Gadwall, Northern Pintail, Mallards, and several others were making their way north over Lake Michigan. A few times each spring we get large flights of ducks moving north over the lake. These flights (and today’s flight) often occur on days with north winds. It seems counterintuitive for birds to migrate into a head wind, but doing so may actually make flying easier as the onrushing air generates lift for them. This is also why airplanes like to take off into a head wind. Link to my eBird checklist for the morning below.
eBird Checklist
March 15, 2022
Divers and Dabblers, March 30, 2019
A strong movement of northbound waterfowl occurred at Montrose this morning, March 30. Geoff Williamson and I stood at the end of the fishing pier for a couple of hours and watched flock after flock of diving and dabbling ducks moving north along Lake Michigan. Most were scaup and Redheads but we also had small numbers of Canvasbacks (uncommon at Montrose), Northern Pintails, Gadwall, American Wigeon, and smaller numbers of Northern Shovelers and Green-winged Teal. We also had a couple of Common Loons and Iceland and Great Black-backed Gulls. A group of White-winged Scoters (~12) was still on the lake off the end of the fishing pier. Link to my eBird checklist for the morning below.
eBird Checklist
https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S54371454