The 8th was Great

What a day!  The 8th had a record flight with 13,841 waterbirds migrating past Tiscornia!

Highlights include 641 Gadwall (new day high count), 1,209 Mallards (easily sets a new day high count and even more impressive considering the season average is 1,738), 8,080 Scaup (3,910 in the 4th hour! The second biggest flight on record), 290 Ring-necked Ducks (this alone is a new season high count, and easily smashes the previous day high count of 50 set back on Oct. 26, 2014), all three Scoter species (including the first adult male Black Scoters of the fall), 688 Bufflehead (this sets a new day high easily beating the 430 set back on Nov. 12, 2012), 1 Harlequin Duck (a female type that swam past the end of the pier and flew north, it made an appearance later in the day  and was last seen flying south), 32 Hooded Merganser, 3 Pied-billed Grebes (strange to see them in 5ft waves), 1,340 Bonaparte's Gulls (all in the last three hours of the count, new day high for the count), 1 Common and 1 Forster's Tern (getting late).

It was an exhausting day that won't soon be forgotten!

Other recent highlights include 2,009 Scaup on the 5th, a close female Long-tailed Duck and a flyby Harlequin Duck on the 6th, one American Woodcock on the 3rd and two on the 4th, two Greater Yellowlegs on the 1st and one on the 2nd, 120 American Coots on the 2nd and 105 on the 3rd,  Parastic Jaegers on the 3rd and 6th, Glaucous Gull, Thayer's Gull, and Little Gull on the 5th, and Black-legged Kittiwake on the 6th.

Non-waterbird highlights include a Northern Goshawk on the 7th and Short-eared Owl on the 4th.