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Friday, March 25, 2011

The ducks are coming!

Mallard, male

Hooded Mergansers, female above, male below

Common Mergansers, female above, male below

Ducks and geese on the Connecticut River between NH and VT. The Connecticut River is a major migration flyway in spring for waterfowl.

This is a great time to go out to lakes and rivers (where the ice has left) to look for all kinds of migrating ducks and geese who are making their way to northern breeding grounds. Bring your binoculars and a spotting scope, which is helpful as many of the birds may be at a distance.
Here in southwest NH where we are, some of the earliest migrants are Hooded Mergansers, Common Mergansers, Black Ducks, Mallards, Canada Geese. There are even reports Snow Geese have been spotted.
Get out there this weekend and find some ducks!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So far here in Ontario this spring, I have seen...

Wood Duck
Black Duck
Shoveler
Redhead
Canvasback
All 3 mergansers
Bufflehead
Ringnecked
Wigeon
Common Goldeneye
Greater Scaup
Ruddy Duck
Green winged Teal

Has been good so far, should be awesome!

Emma Springfield said...

I do believe that spring is coming. Ducks returning are one of the signs.

BLD in MT said...

We saw a bunch of common goldeneyes on the Yellowstone River! I was hoping this was a sign of spring being around the corner.

Marilyn Kircus said...

Our sign of spring, here at Anahuac NWR, on the Texas coast, is when all the snow and greater white-fronted geese leave. They have been diminishing since early February and were completely gone a few weeks ago. And our ducks are rapidly leaving as well. Incoming are Eastern kingbirds, Scissor-tailed flycatchers, green herons and cattle egrets. The great egrets are already sitting on eggs. Heck, it's almost summer here.