In addition to the single males on the East Pond at Jamaica Bay (Queens Co.) and Patchogue Lake (Suffolk Co.), Jim Ash found another male at Coopers Neck Pond in Southampton (Suffolk Co.) this past Saturday [12 Nov 2011]. It was still there on Sunday afternoon, vigorously courting a female American Wigeon. Although the species is seen in coastal NY every fall-winter-spring, the exact numbers vary from year to year: some years bringing multiple birds to the region, other years just one or two. Is this going to be a bumper season? It's fun to find one of these handsome ducks and worth checking through the flock wherever wigeon gather. The more wigeon studied, the better the odds. The perennial question is where are the females. It's reasonable to assume a few are mixed in somewhere but they are just much, much harder to find because of the close similarity to female American Wigeon.
-- Angus Wilson New York City & The Springs, NY, USA http://birdingtotheend.blogspot.com/ -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/NYSB.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
