I was at Pohick Bay for a couple of hours this afternoon. There were
thousands of ducks and other birds on the water, and the ice. (Partial List
below) .
In addition to the ducks, there were a couple of hundred or more Canada geese,
about 100 Tundra Swans (close enough to hear them calling and see them flapping
their wings), at least four Bald Eagles out on the ice, and a bunch of gulls.
The afternoon sunshine on the birds made for excellent viewing and photography.
It was all quite impressive.
I made no attempt to do an accurate count; many of the birds were too far away
to hardly even see, even with a scope
However, I did see:
Redhead: hundreds
Canvasbacks: dozens
Coots: countless
Hooded Mergansers: probably hundreds.
Common Mergansers
Bufflehead
Gadwall
Ruddy duck
Ringnecks
Scaup
American widgeon
Mallards
A pair of Goldeneye,
(Seen and reported by Bill Young.)
I did not find or see the Eurasian widgeon, nor the Eared Grebe.
It was all quite impressive.
It will be interesting to see how many birds are still there as the ice
begins to melt.
Donald Sweig
Falls Church, Virginia
Sent from my iPhone
