Long-tailed Ducks Tag In

Rain and clouds continued, winds seemed to be light while I was out and about.

Yesterday’s rain total ended up being 0.92″, so a little less than I thought it might be. Still enough to take us to 1.52″ above normal for the month, and 2.69″ above normal for the year to date.

There was enough of a break for a partial and faint rainbow to show up while I was out and about this afternoon. A larger clearly brightened things up a bit this evening around the time of sunset.

I didn’t spend too much time outside today, but made a stop by the Channel, Swan Lake, and Eagle Way while I was out this afternoon taking care of a couple of errands.


There were not very many gulls in the channel today, and I was interested to see how many more Long-tailed Ducks there were relative to what I’ve seen recently. I think those two observations were related (I believe the ducks move out of the central part of the channel when there are too many gulls around.)

Although there appeared to be some gulls at the park, it didn’t strike me as nearly enough to explain how few there were in the channel. It makes me wonder if herring were available somewhere. I’ve not heard of any spawning reports, and the fishery is still on two hour notice, so I’m not sure.


The patch of ice that had been at the far end of the lake apparently drifted down to near the peninsula since yesterday. Contrary to what I thought yesterday, I now suspect it’s a chunk more from the center, and it just happened to be floating up at the upper end.

There were a pair of Northern Shovelers at Starrigavan. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same ones reported at Swan Lake within the past few days. It seems likely they overwintered in the area, and are moving around a bit more now.

I made progress on the RSS->email set up. I think it’s working but need to do a little testing out before finalizing it for subscribers.

My iNaturalist Observations for Today

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