Hi, Burt Guttman had asked "Are you seeing diminished numbers of water birds? I went by Capitol Lake in Olympia and the numbers are astonishingly low. There's usually a huge gathering of American Wigeons at the south end of the lake, and there were hardly any yesterday. The mixed flocks of diving ducks are much thinner than usual. I know humans are destroying the world's ecosystems, but if these numbers are an indication of how badly we're doing it, we're in far greater trouble than I had thought."
I wrote Burt that numbers have fluctuated wildly
on the lake of late. On the Christmas count which I have done downtown Olympia for the past 23 years,
I tallied over 4000 ducks (including Budd Inlet). It was actually a big year compared to
others with lake numbers around high counts or above. Don't know where they go when
not on Capitol Lake and as far as I know, Capitol Lake is a destroyed ecosystem.
Some of this year's numbers are as follows:


Gadwall= 157 (compare that to a combined total of 252 for all the years between 1987 & 2001).
Eurasian Wigeon= 8 (First bird detected in 2001, had 13 last year)

Am Wigeon= 1304 (compared to 1071 combined for all the years between 1987 & 2001)

Ring-necked Duck= 425 (compared to 655 for ALL years between 1987 & 2008)

Lesser Scaup= 779 (compared to 662 between 1987 & 2001)

Bufflehead= 488 (compared to double digits in the late 80's and early 90's; had 841 last year)
Now on the other hand, especially when considering Budd Inlet, you have species such as Barrow's Goldeneye, White-winged Scoter and Black Scoter with numbers which have plumeted. Check this progression of numbers for Black Scoter: 28, 16, 21, 83, 27, 22, 26, 0, 5, 6, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0. And White-winged Scoter: 352, 161, 202, 402, 208, 215, 201, 33, 5, 0, 52, 26, 58, 0, 8, 12, 54, 8, 29, 3, 24, 2, 2
Anyway, there ya go.

Keith Brady
Olympia, WA



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