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Stopped in at Wellington Reservoir to see what may have lingered through the cold snap of a month ago. This body of water is unique among those of north-central Ohio in that it takes far lower temperatures for far longer to completely freeze and drive off the waterfowl lingering here from the autumn. And of those lingering waterfowl, there may be many as in the past 10-12 years, the regular staging of Ruddy Ducks, Ring-necked Ducks, and American Coots has grown to involve 1000's of each species, with hundreds lingering into December. On the rare (increasingly frequent?) occurrence of open water into January, the prospect of recording unheard of mid-winter numbers has been something I have come to anticipate. Today, the numbers were not near some of the records of thaws of last couple of warmer winters, but not inconsiderable. The occasional scoter is a bonus.
Canada Goose - 250 Ring-necked Duck - 96 Redhead - 18 BLACK SCOTER - 1 SURF SCOTER - 5 Bufflehead - 4 Ruddy Duck - 27 American Coot - 271
An adult Bald Eagle overhead caused the entire set of waterfowl to move into a dozen very tight rafts. In the space of 3 minutes, these 400+ birds spread widely across the reservoir and intermixed as to species composition were in tight formations of roughly 90% of single species each.
I also checked Oberlin City reservoir and it was largely devoid of birds; neither reservoir held any gulls.
cheers
Vic Fazio
Shaker Hts, OH