The kids and I stopped by Swan Lake again today to see if the swans might be there. The weather was much more pleasant than yesterday, so we stayed a little longer, but did not see the swans. We did find three Ring-necked Ducks and around 10 Lesser Scaups hanging out in the open water near the peninsula. All but one of these birds seemed fairly wary of us (the exception was a scaup who swam up close to shore near where the kids were sitting on a bench) – but the relatively small area of open water kept them close enough for a decent chance at observing them.
Scaups can be difficult to identify, and I’ll probably write up a separate post on why I think these were Lesser Scaups. I mentioned earlier in the week the mystery of the Ring-necked Ducks, but I suppose it’s also fair to say the Lesser Scaups present a similar mystery. I guess in the case of the scaups it’s easy to imagine they are just blending in with the Greater Scaups in the channel while the lake is frozen – they’re usually far enough out that it would be difficult to identify them – but I don’t really know that this is the case.
After the winds of yesterday, the prevailing calm today was a nice change. There were periodic showers, but nothing too extreme. Temperatures were in the lower 40s for much of the day. This afternoon the dew point was up between 39F and 41F, only a couple of degrees cooler than the air temperature. As a consequence of this and the lack of wind, a ground fog/mist formed over the surface of Swan Lake where there was enough ice remaining to cool the still air above it below the dew point.
Several Lesser Scaups were present at Swan Lake.
Several Lesser Scaups were present at Swan Lake.
Ring-necked Ducks returned to Swan Lake once there were significant patches of open water.
Ring-necked Ducks returned to Swan Lake once there were significant patches of open water.
A ground fog appeared over the surface of Swan Lake; probably due to remaining ice cooling the air below the dew point.
A ground fog appeared over the surface of Swan Lake; probably due to remaining ice cooling the air below the dew point.
We saw the swans on the far side of Thimbleberry on Friday around 10:45am.
Back in town for a visit? Thanks for mentioning the swans, I was up there today with my kids and might have missed them were I not looking specifically for them. There were 11 of them all resting at the far end of the lake, so with the distance and snow cover, it was challenging to make them out.