Journal of a Sabbatical

December 27, 1998

canvasbacks awake

There's still snow on the ground from Tuesday's storm down here (none at my house - it never snowed in my area). There's a little ice way out in the cove but mostly it's open water.

The canvasbacks, who are normally 1) asleep and 2) way over by the golf course barely in binocular range were wide awake on the west side of the cove fairly close to shore and mixed in with hordes of Canada geese, small numbers of wigeons, and (oddly) the swans. The swans don't seem to scare anybody away.

The Canada geese were friendlier than usual. Hordes of them were coming up on shore for bread from the various families of breaders. Plenty of breaders and plenty of birders hung out there today.

I suspect the birders were looking for the Eurasian wigeon, who's been around a lot but whom I did not see today.

The buffleheads and hooded mergansers kept to themselves as usual. I did see a couple of wigeons following the hoodies again. I need to document this for the literature. Very little is written down about the wigeons' habits of scrounging food from other duck species as a regular way of life.