Today a few of us from the Cattaraugus County Bird Club participated in the NYS DEC / NYSOA annual waterfowl survey. Each January a quarter of a million ducks across New York State are counted by bird clubs, state officials and your average birder. We are also participating in the Mid-winter Bald Eagle Survey, where we are locating Eagles wintering along the Allegheny River. The results of these two surveys will help determine the long-term monitoring of waterfowl and Eagle populations within New York State during the winter months.
Canada Goose with a cold wake up call.
Today was our target date and we could not have asked for a better January day to conduct these surveys. The river and streams were open due to the warmer temperatures that occurred this past week. Although last evening we were hit with a hard frost, we did encounter ice in most of the smaller lakes. The sun peaked through the clouds on numerous occasions and temperatures were low to mid ~30’s!
Common Merganser through the trees.
| 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | |
| Bald Eagle | 8 | 1 | 6 |
| Pied-billed Grebe | 1 | ||
| Canada Goose | 125 | 185 | 223 |
| Mallard | 89 | 96 | 99 |
| Black Duck | 7 | 3 | 5 |
| Common Merganser | 26 | 46 | 41 |
| Hooded Merganser | 2 | 3 | 9 |
| Bufflehead | 2 | ||
| Common Goldeneye | 1 | ||
| Long-tailed Duck | 1 | ||
| Total | 259 | 336 | 384 |
Mallards
We observed a total of 23 bird species with my highlights being a Coopers Hawk chasing European Starlings, Eastern Bluebirds, Cedar Waxwings, Common Raven, Tree Sparrows, Pileated Woodpecker, and the Pied-billed Grebe which we almost overlooked (thanks for finding Tim).
This was first posted on Mon@rch’s Nature Blog and then reposted by Tom for the Catt. Co. Birdclub.
