While birding along the Lake Erie shoreline today from Port Glasgow,
Clear Creek, Rose Beach Line to Erieau highlights included 5 Red-necked
Grebes off the boat launch at Clear Creek and a male Eurasian Wigeon in
a flooded corn stubble field near McGeachey's Pond.
The male Eurasian Wigeon was in a flooded field east of Erieau Road
across from McGeachey's pond with about 500 other dabblers including
mostly American Wigeon and Northern Pintail and a few Green-winged Teal,
Gadwall, Mallards and Northern Shoveler. While scoping the ducks we also
found 2 Wilson's Snipe and one each of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs.
Rondeau Bay and Lake Erie off Erieau are mostly still frozen. The harbor
entrance is ice-free but with few ducks and American Coots. An open lead
on Rondeau Bay has 1000s of ducks and some swans but is too far away to
ID much even with a scope. That should change dramatically with the warm
temperatures the next few days.
Lake Erie east of Rondeau has lots of open water between large swaths of
ice and even ice bergs and there are 1000s of ducks and swans on the
lake, some fairly close to shore. The most numerous waterfowl are
Greater Scaup along with 100s of Common and Red-breasted Mergansers and
Common Goldeneye and with a few dozen each of Bufflehead and Redhead.
Species with less than 10 individuals counted included Long-tailed Duck,
White-winged Scoter and Horned Grebe. A few hundred gulls including 100+
Bonaparte's Gulls were following the Red-breasted Mergansers as they fished.
To get to Erieau, drive west from Blenheim and turn south on Erieau
Road. McGeachey's Pond is on the right just before entering Erieau.
Rose Beach Line is the lakeshore road from the Rondeau causeway to
Morpeth. There are lots of lookouts over the lake along this road
including opposite the Morpeth trailer park.
Clear Creek boat launch is reached from Hwy 3 coming east from Morpeth,
south from Ridgetown or southwest from Rodney.
Port Glasgow is due south of Rodney.
Dave Martin and Linda Wladarski
Harrietsville, ON
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