New York Waterfowl Count
January 15-23, 2005

by Barbara Butler

 
The conditions for this year’s Waterfowl Count were set up by the weather before the count began.  Wednesday 8 inches of snow fell.   Thursday was quite warm and foggy most of the day.  Thursday night into Friday, about 2 inches of rain fell and the rest of the snow melted.  Friday the temperatures plunged and the precipitation ended with 1-3 inches of snow.  We did most of our counting on Saturday, the 15th.  By then the river was ice-free, but with lots of floating debris.  The streams were high with some out of their banks.  The Wappingers Creek, Ten Mile River and other streams were so turbulent, we laughingly expected to see Harlequin Ducks.  Most ducks abandoned the streams.  Some ponds were opened by the strong inflows of water.  Yet even the warm wet weather wasn’t enough to open up most ponds.  The remainder of the count period was very cold – below zero several nights and never above freezing.

Canada Geese were way down from last year.  There were small groups all over.  The largest was 1200 at both Round Pond and Sylvan Lake.  In prior years Dot Fleury has found 5000 or more at Rudd or Round Pond.  There were that many at Rudd Pond until a week before this year’s count.  Perhaps they’d gone a little farther south.  We found no large flocks of Mute Swans or Black Ducks on the river as in prior years.  Sylvan Lake had the only Ruddy Ducks, American Coots, and Common Loon.  It had the most Ring-necked Ducks, but some were also found at Rudd, Round, and Christie Ponds.  The Northern Pintails, females, were on Wappingers Lake.  The Buffleheads and DC Cormorants were found on the river.  We found the most ever Hooded Mergansers.  There were 10 at Wappingers Lake, plus some on Wappingers Creek, Sylvan Lake, McKinney Pond, Valkill, and Swamp River.

Thanks to everyone who helped out. We had enough counters to cover most of the county on the first day. A special thanks to Chet Vincent and Barb Michelin for leading groups that covered the Hudson.

Compiler: Barbara Butler

To compare these results with those of all past counts, see our Waterfowl Count page.

Wings Over Dutchess, February 2005

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