By mid-winter, the prize rare birds have all been established and often settle into a routine. As such, the bird chasers continue to make pilgrimages to Morris Island in Chatham to view the state’s first Ferruginous Hawk, Fort Rodman in New Bedford to view the cooperative Northern Lapwing visiting from Europe, then scooching over the border to farmy Portsmouth, Rhode Island to check off the ultra-rare Tundra Bean-Goose, which nests on Siberia tundra and winters no closer than Western Europe. Of those three, the goose is technically the rarest, having never been seen in New England before ten days ago.
But what about you, average listener, who is not the sort of person to devote a day to a rare goose chase? You, my friend, should focus on finding the local open water patches right now, where you can enjoy the abundant and lovely work-a-day winter waterfowl that grace our region. This cold has been systematically shrinking the area of lake and pond surface available to ducks and their associates, packing them into dense, multi-species rafts, nervously feeding while watching for hungry eagles who also know about the open water patches.
These open water patches tend to produce more species than during unfrozen times – our three species of fish-munching mergansers offer a good example. Hooded Mergansers like smaller, wooded ponds and creeks where they eat crayfish and small fish, Red-breasted Mergansers like salt water, and the hefty Common Mergansers like the biggest freshwater lakes and reservoirs. But all three are crowded together in the remaining open water patches of several ponds around the region right now, often with several other species of both dabbling ducks, like Mallards and wigeon, and diving ducks like Ring-necked Ducks and Bufflehead.
I was recently checking Herring Pond in Eastham for a reported Canvasback, a handsome diving duck with an elegant, sloping bill profile. They used to be more common but have shifted their wintering range away from New England – Nantucket is the last place left you can expect to see any. I found the duck in question among many dozens of Ring-necked Ducks, American Wigeon, and all three mergansers, all crowded into a shrinking patch of open water on this mostly frozen pond. I was startled to see an adult Bald Eagle standing on the ice not far away, munching on a Canada Goose. Obviously the non-startled ducks understood that the eagle was not likely to eat them while it was already dining on goose, sort of like when the zebras on the Serengeti know the lions are already full.
You should especially watch for eagles if your open water patch has any American Coots, which are like popcorn for eagles. These charcoal-colored floating chickens can’t dive for very long, though they try, before popping back up like a fishing bobber to the waiting eagle. Ashumet Pond in Falmouth recently had at least three Bald Eagles diving on a flock of coots and ducks sharing the remaining ice-free water.
With all this talk about waterfowl, you might be wondering about bird flu, known to science people as Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. It’s been on Cape since 2022, and is now infecting mammals and even people, nationally. With increasing bird, mammal, and human cases making news, including over 60 geese and other waterfowl suspected to have died from it at a pond in Plymouth last week, you will be hearing more and more. At this point you still needn’t worry if you don’t work at a poultry or dairy farm, as long as you leave sick and dead birds alone. Birdfeeders are still ok since songbirds are not as affected but keep them clean. Report numbers of dead birds to the state, link on the Bird Report page on the website, if you see five or more dead waterfowl or other larger birds, or if you find a dead Bald Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, or Snowy Owl – birds of prey are also dying from it.
Stay tuned for more on that issue, but for now I just want you get out and enjoy these prime duck appreciation days of this old-school, frozen late winter.