[mou] Red-throated Loons in Duluth

[Kim R Eckert]

Around 12:30 pm today (April 29), 2 Red-throated Loons were seen on L  
Superior in Duluth. They flew south to north over the lake past my  
position at Lafayette Square/31st Street, and I lost sight of them as  
they landed on the lake, perhaps halfway between 31st St and downtown.  
One of the loons was in full alternate/breeding plumage, while the  
other seemed to be in juvenile or basic plumage.

It also appeared that many of the waterfowl reported on mou-net by  
Peder Svingen on April 22 at Park Point were still present today. (His  
total was ~9,000 birds in all, including over 3,000 Greater Scaup,  
seen on both the lake and bay sides of Park Point.) Between noon and  
1:00 pm today, I counted/estimated by 10s a minimum of 3,300 waterfowl  
on the lake, all visible just from 31st Street. Note there were also  
100s of other waterfowl I didn't count elsewhere on both sides of Park  
Point.

Of these 3,300 waterfowl, virtually all of them appeared to be scaup,  
although many birds were too distant to identify. However, of the  
birds I could ID, only 80 or so were not scaup. Also, of the ~200  
scaup close enough to ID with certainty, only about 10 (or 5%) were  
Lesser Scaup. If you then extrapolate these numbers to the entire  
flock (which I admit may not be a legitimate calculation), it is  
possible there were about 3,000 Greater Scaup present at this single  
location.

Kim Eckert