My first yard hooded mergansers of the season arrived this morning!
The 2 pairs (so far) join the enthusiastically mating mallards who arrived 2
weeks ago.
Also this morning we had what we call the Cormorant Battalion: cormorants by
the hundreds show up in the a.m. and go splashing through the neighborhood
drainage lake towards the Nansemond River. I am watching about 24 of them
splashing and gorging on fish right now, all within about 100 square feet of
each other...it's chaos! It looks like the large numbers of cormorants herd
the fish into the shallows and then feast.
--Elisabeth Wilkins
Suffolk, VA
