Olympia Tweeters,

I think the freezing conditions forced some waterfowl out of shallow waters and into large lake
and marine areas. Capitol Lake had more wigeons than I've seen before. Here's my count from
this afternoon:

Gadwall - 230
Bufflehead - 140
Coot - 87
Greater Scaup - 418
Ring-necked Duck - 63
American Wigeon - 1,065
Eurasian Wigeon - 4
Ruddy Duck - 42
Redhead - 6
Canvasback - 1
Mallard - 93
Hooded Merganser - 12
Common Merganser - 7
Common Goldeneye - 5
Canada Goose - 57
Shoveler - 6
Green-winged Teal - 22
Northern Pintail - 4

Included in this tally is everything on the north and south basins of Capitol Lake, plus
Percival Cove and the area above Interstate 5, including the lower river at the old
brewery.

I won't claim anything close to perfection. It's not easy. As I worked my way from north to
south, I was closing in on large numbers of waterfowl at the south end of the lake when
an adult Bald Eagle decided it was time to do some hunting and the air was alive with ducks
for a minute or two. I estimated about 800 wigeon (and fewer of other species) were flying
from the eagle. It appeared that virtually all of them came back and settled not far from
where they started so I assumed that I could just continue counting my way south along the
lakeshore and that's what I did.

There are a lot of Gadwall on the lake. When I look at my total (230), it doesn't seem possible
there could be that many. Anybody else want to try counting them?

There were two wigeon just 50 meters or so north of the Interstate bridge. I called them
Eurasian Wigeons, suspecting they might both be subadult males. Neither had the typical
soft gray body of a typical adult male Eurasian Wigeon. They both had quite a bit of rufous
on the sides. I believe someone else mentioned hybrdism recently. Maybe these two were hybrids.
They were, of course, accompanied by a bunch of typical American Wigeons.

I didn't work very hard at making sure none of the scaup were lesser scaup. Most that I got
a good look at appeared to be Greater Scaup.

I'd be really interested in seeing what kinds of numbers others might come up with during this
cold period. Even if someone just tried to count the Gadwalls and nothing else, it would be
interesting to compare. I'm trying to evaluate the accuracy of my estimates.

Another great waterfowl estimation challenge can be had at Nisqually, if you can find out where
all of the Cacklers (and the 2 Ross' Geese) are hanging around.


Kelly McAllister
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Olympia, Washington
Reply to: mcallkrm at dfw.wa.gov