Tundra Swans at Kyle Lake

Tuesday, 11-115-11, I ran to the DuBois reservoir before class hoping that the rain had pushed some waterfowl down. I counted 5 american crows, 3 blue jays, 4 canada geese, 28 mallards, over 150 ring-necked ducks, a belted kingfisher male, and a few pied billed grebes, hooded mergansers, buffleheads, and rudy ducks.

Hooded margansers, male in back



Belted Kingfisher

While I was leaving the reservoir, I noticed a large number of geese coming over the tree line. So I managed to snap a few quick and sloppy photos, and pick get a count of the flock after they landed on the reservoir. 142 canda geese, and 1 immature snow goose made up the flock. I then hussled back to campus for class.

Canada Geese



After my biology class, I met my cousin Justin Marshall, and we went to Kyle Lake in Fallscreek to check for waterfowl. Again, nothing exciting. There was 1 pied-billed grebe on the lake. When we were walking back to the truck, we noticed a good flock of swans, which once were overhead were identified as tundra swans. There were 16 in this flock. Again, I managed to get a few quick and sloppy photos of the group.



Tundra Swan flock, the bird at the bottom right of the photo has been fitted with a neck collar (double click to enlarge)

We then made our way to the DuBois reservoir, where we found that the large flock of canada geese had left. The raft of diving ducks and mallards were still there though. We watched for a little while before leaving, I had another class to get to. It wasn't my best day of birding, but things should start picking up once I get more free time.