The scene of the lake today took on an eerie atmosphere today as thick fog reduced visibility to less than one-tenth of a mile for the first hour, and the early afternoon. St. Ignace was only visible for the final hour of the day, while for the remainder of the day the clouds continued to roll through and the fog blanketed the lake and the migrating waterfowl. In addition to this deterrent for waterbird identification, a thunderstorm quickly rolled through at approximately 12:22 PM, at which point I packed up and waited until the thunder and lightning was far enough away, along with a reduction in rainfall. In spite of the bad weather, today still turned up decent counts for common birds, along with a few firsts: Green-winged Teals and an adult male Northern Shoveler. On a side note, during the few brief moments throughout the day there were breaks in the fog and clouds, and the sun illuminated the lake, it gave me some insight into the natural beauty of springtime on this lake- take a look:
Canada Goose – 28
Mallard – 11
Green-winged Teal – 5
Northern Shoveler – 1
Redhead – 9
White-winged Scoter – 8
scoter sp. – 2
Long-tailed Duck – 27
Bufflehead – 2
Common Goldeneye – 25
Common Merganser – 26
Red-breasted Merganser – 126
Common Loon – 3
Horned Grebe– 2
Double-crested Cormorant– 5
duck sp. – 82
Other Species:
Turkey Vulture – 1
Northern Harrier – 1
Bald Eagle – 4
Buteo sp. – 6
