Another cold morning around south Quabbin looking for waterfowl

'Lesser' Canada Goose, Goodnough Dike, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

'Lesser' Canada Goose, Goodnough Dike, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

'Lesser' Canada Goose, Goodnough Dike, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

Hooded Mergansers, Beaver Lake, Ware, MA, Nov 22, 2014

Common Mergansers, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

Black Ducks, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

Canada Geese, Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

Winsor Dam, Quabbin Park, MA, Nov 22, 2014

I spent another very cold morning (low around 17) around the south Quabbin area mainly searching for unusual waterfowl.  Although  didn't find anything extreme a very small 'Lesser' Canada Goose in among its more normal sized brothers was an interesting find at Goodnough Dike.

I made my typical stops in the morning starting at Winsor Dam and then through Quabbin Park, a detour to Beaver Lake and then back to Winsor Dam. Predawn at Winsor Dam featured a group of at least 87 ducks way out on the water...just too far out to ID given the lack of light, the low level fog and the distance. I believe they were Mallards but really not 100% sure. Hundreds of gulls were also around but most just too far out to identify. My stops within Quabbin Park included Hank's Meadow and Goodnough Dike. Between the two stops I found 141 Canada Geese (97 flying south from Hank's Meadow and the rest, including the 'lesser', on the water at Goodnough Dike), five Black Ducks, five Hooded Mergansers, four Horned Grebe and three Common Loons.

Beaver Lake was more iced out than yesterday with over 50% of the lake frozen. The open water featured some waterfowl including 12 Canada Geese, 7 Mallards, three Common Mergansers and 57 Hooded Mergansers.

Once I made it back to Winsor Dam the low level fog had disappeared but so had most of the birds seen there earlier. I stayed at Winsor Dam for about an hour just seeing what was coming by and managed to find the following waterfowl: 46  Canada Geese (all moving southwest), 7 Black Ducks, 4 Mallards, a Bufflehead, 7 Hooded Mergansers, 4 Common Mergansers, two Horned Grebes and two Common Loons.  Other notables at the dam included a flyby American Pipit and a few Snow Buntings out along the dam.

The next few days feature some warming temperatures that will eventually result in temps in the low 60's on Monday. The winds will be out of the southwest for a few days and although not perfect conditions and getting a little late in the season the setup could send some Cave Swallows north. So far this season only a handful have made it out of the south and all of those have been seen in New Jersey.