Activity in Churchill Cove

Some of our members asked me to let them know when the Scoter flock shows up. They are usually a March arrival - their mian objectiive is the Herring Spawn - and I don't know if that is happening but the Scoters arrived yesterday. I got one shot this morning with 100 birds in the flock - and there are more.

There has been an unusual amount of activity in the cove in the past few weeks with large numbers of both kinds of golden eyes, mergansers and a significant number of resident mallards. The usual following of buffel heads comes with the golden eyes and today I witnessed an unusual event - as a rule when the Scoters arrive the golden eyes mingle with them - and that may be yet to come - but today a significant line of our resident gollden eyes, maergansers, buffle heads and mallards formed up and swam in the direction of the Scoters.(instead of joining them), and the Scoters - seemingly in retaliation - just flew around them and landed behind them and off to the left. I hadn't noticed in the past if this had happened before when the Scoters first arrived so maybe the mingling is yet to occur - in any case the cove is very active - and also very cold at this time. I set my tripod up and I come in for warm up spell - and then return to the shore line.

As a rule the Scoters stay for about a month so I don,t k ow how long it will be tis time - but I did get a couple of good shots of them flying - they had to come right at me to go around the other birds - so I wiuld recommend that those interested come to this area to see and photo these birds.(before the snow starts?!)

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