[CT Birds] Silver Sands waterfowl

[charsjs at sbcglobal.net]

>From Steve & Charla Spector:;
2/08/08 -- Silver Sands State Park -- for the past 2 weeks rafts of Scaup have been building; in strings & rafts of about 500-1500; total numbers have grown from the hundreds to presently around 5000 (conservatively) .  Most birds remain offshore at least as far as Charles Island, so they are difficult to count, and very hard to distinguish Greater from Lesser (presumably great majority are Greater).  Impressive swirling flights of large clouds of ducks.  Also good numbers of Horned Grebes in the area with building numbers of Common and Red-throated Loons. Red-breated Mergansers and Common Goldeneye males performing great courtship displays taking full advantage of their impressive necks & heads. Smaller numbers of Oldsquaw remaining fairly far out in open Sound.