Five members of JAS spend a beautiful autumn morning at Watkins Lake SP looking for waterfowl. We were not disappointed.  Thirteen species of waterfowl were spotted.  Lots of the usual suspects at this time and place including lots of Canada Goose, Ring Neck and Ruddy Ducks.  Redheads and Canvasbacks were there as well and gave us some opportunity to compare these two species. 

Kingfishers and herons were active so the fishing was good as well.  The color was excellent as well and we had some nice views of the changing landscape as the clouds broke and lit up some sections of the park.

In addition to our avian friends, Gary Siegrist showed us a growth of American Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). Not Oriental Bittersweet, the invasive, but the native species.  This is not found very often so it was good to get familiar with this species. It has similar persistent red berries with a orange capsule, but they are clumped at the terminal, not throughout the branch as in the invasive.  If you'd like for information on identification see this excellent two page identification guide available from the USGS.

All photos Steve Jerant

See our trip eBird checklist.

600 Canada Goose

5 Wood Duck

4 Northern Shoveler

40 Mallard

1 Northern Pintail

31 Canvasback -- Individually counted. Outnumbered Redheads considerably.

6 Redhead

800 Ring-necked Duck

3 Lesser Scaup

17 Hooded Merganser

300 Ruddy Duck -- Large numbers estimated mixed in with many Ring Billed ducks.

20 Pied-billed Grebe

4 Mourning Dove

50 American Coot

4 Sandhill Crane

4 Bonaparte's Gull

10 Ring-billed Gull

4 Great Blue Heron

10 Turkey Vulture

1 Cooper's Hawk -- Spotted by Gary

2 Belted Kingfisher

3 Red-bellied Woodpecker

5 Blue Jay

5 Black-capped Chickadee

1 Tufted Titmouse

2 White-breasted Nuthatch

30 European Starling

1 Eastern Bluebird

30 American Robin

1 House Finch

17 American Goldfinch

3 Dark-eyed Junco

30 Red-winged Blackbird

Number of Taxa: 33