Those are some interesting numbers! The goose and waterfowl numbers on
the Great Miami in and around Hamilton seemed really low this year,
compared to past years, when flocks of Canada Geese in the thousands
could be found up and down the river, from roughly Black Street bridge
to Miami-University, Hamilton campus. The Acton Lake totals and
variety for the weekend seem really high--possibly unprecedented? I
don't have enough experience birding the lake and nearby fields to
know. How often have numbers that large with that sort of variety been
encountered on Acton Lake in recent years? If I had to bet, I'd bet
never.

And no Ross x Snow hybrids? All the cool kids these days claim to find those ;-)

Take care,
---Mike

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 10:53 AM, Russell, David E. Dr.
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Greetings!!!
>
> Please replace the Chili Challenge totals sheet you are using for up-dates
> with the one included in this note—I have added a few lines so it doesn’t
> match up with previous sheets.
>
> It appears Acton Lake was right at the ice melt line this weekend—we had
> several thousand geese [7-8,000] on the ice and in the fields Friday and
> Saturday. Over the years I have found blue-phase Snow’s to be relatively
> unusual—a couple mixed into some flocks but they were not very frequently
> encountered, this weekend I was amazed at the number of ‘Blue Geese’ I
> saw---in fact white phase were the minority!! Among the geese Friday I had
> 74 Snows (60% blue-phase heavily stained orange), 5 Ross’s, and 9-10
> Cackling Geese. Sat afternoon I found considerably fewer geese, but had two
> flocks of Snow Geese-one of 33 birds about 50% blue/white phase and one 35
> birds about 70% blue-phase with 3 Ross’s fly over. On the ice we had one
> flock of 13 Snow Geese with 2 White-fronted among the Canada’s and another
> flock of 6 White-fronted near the north end of Acton. Closer to the dam was
> another collection of Snows-35 blue-phase with 6 white and 2 Ross’s Geese.
> There was one small collection of 3 Cackling Geese off in one corner. Among
> the several hundred ducks were Common (4) and Hooded Mergs (16), C.
> Goldeneye (5), Bufflehead (8), L. Scaup (11), about 65 Ring-necked Ducks
> (90% males), Redheads (12), 45+ GW Teal, Wood Ducks (5), my first A. Wigeon
> of the year (23), N. Pintail (8), Shovelers (2), A. Black Ducks (31), and
> Gadwall (9).  Numerous mixed flocks of grackles, red-wings, and cowbirds
> flew over both days and one flock I found in the fields between Hueston
> Woods and Oxford (near the cemetery) had about 20 Rusty Blackbirds in the
> mix of 150 birds.  A flock of 9 E. Meadowlarks was close to but apparently
> not with the blackbirds (blackbirds were “rolling” across the field, the
> meadowlarks didn’t move).
>
> It is exciting that spring is around the corner!!
>
> Please send your Chili Challenge up-date—USING THE NEW FORM FROM TODAY.
>
> Cheers
>
> Dave
>
>