I ended up walking the length of the flock, and estimating 15,000 Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks were present, with another 1400 Lesser Scaup. The whistlers were pretty much on land, the scaup out in the water. Careful inspection of the couple hundred scaup that were close in did not show any Greater Scaup mixed in (Greaters are often mixed into Lesser flocks in our area, in small numbers).
I used to bird this site twenty years ago, before the Whistler invasion. Back then thousands of scaup were regularly in attendance in late winter, but there were of course no whistlers around yet. My how things have changed!
These Whistlers presumably share time between the elevator area and Audubon Park,which is more or less across the River, and where local birder Dan Purrington reported counting 10,000 in the lagoon system fairly recently. The species is also numerous (though not in such crazy numbers) at Lafreniere Park in Metairie, at the Monticello water treatment plant in New Orleans, and can be found in smaller numbers widely throughout the metro area. As spring progresses, you may see them showing up in residential areas with tall trees- where they nest in cavities.
As far as birding the Ninemile Point site, the mass of birds is both cacophonous and odiferous. For parking, I pulled over at the Entergy plant just upstream where there were other cars pulled off on the left, but have not yet done any legwork with respect to asking how they feel about birders parking there. I walked the river levee to count the birds.
The pics below are just small segments of the area. The third picture has scaup in the foreground.
No comments:
Post a Comment