Hey all, scoping the James River from Lion's Bridge of Mariner's Museum Park in
Newport News this morning turned up 2 Black Scoters and a pair of salty
Green-winged Teal fairly close to shore. The rafts of Canvasback, Scaup, Ruddy
Ducks, and Goldeneye have not returned here yet, hopefully in a couple weeks in
time for the CBC. The 2 Black Scoters were present here yesterday too, along
w/ 5 Surf Scoters. This is my 1st time seeing Black Scoters this far up-river.
I motor-boated through this stretch of River yesterday traveling from
Huntington Park to the Warwick River mouth, and turned up few ducks other than
Buffleheads and 1 Ruddy, but did find 1 big aggregation of approx. 50 Horned
Grebes, a couple rafts of Common Loons totaling some 50 birds (these guys were
pretty vocal too), good counts of Forster's Terns (25) and Brown Pelicans (79)
with most of these roosting on abandoned pilings, 20 + Bonaparte's Gulls
feeding over the Loon rafts, and approx. 70 Laughing Gulls still hanging
around. A Peregrine Falcon was a nice fly-over after loading the boat back up
@ Huntington Park. OK, gotta get to the leaf-raking now. Best, Nick
FlandersRaleigh, NC
