Fwd: eBird Report - BHI--Deer Island, Jan 27, 2024

[Soheil Zendeh]

Folks,

A small group of us walked the Deer Island, Winthrop, walkway during high tide today. Conditions were cloudy and mild with a light N - NE breeze.

Starting at about the 1/2 mile mark south along the outer shore, we began to see larger and larger rafts of mixed ducks -- see the ebird list below. A boat full of duck hunters was parked about 500 yards out at sea, and they were throwing duck decoys over the side in preparation for the hunt. The odd thing is, once the ducks began to move, they flew toward and over the boat rather than away from it.

Initially, the duck rafts seemed to be a mixture of scoters and eiders -- somewhere over 1000 birds. But then a much larger flock of eiders began to stream east and northeast -- I did not see where they started nor where they ended up. This was easily over 3000 birds, flying stretched out low over the waters of the Harbor. 

Two weeks ago we had seen a similar enormous flock of eiders at a great distance when looking south from Winthrop Beach. At that time, I assumed that we would find and count those birds on the Harbor cruise which took place on Saturday Jan 21, one week ago. But on that cruise we only tallied about 750 eiders and not many scoters at al. Until today, I had no explanation for where the enormous flocks from two weeks ago had gone, but now I think I know. They (eiders, scoters, scaup) seem to rest or roost to the east of Deer Island, then (for whatever reason) fly to a spot northeast of that, perhaps just south or southwest of Nahant -- must be good feeding there. The path of the Harbor cruise last week did not cross where those birds congregate. Based on what we saw from the boat last week, we would not know anything about these huge flocks.

For 35 years (1980 - 2015) we conducted Take a Second Look (TASL) winter counts in the Harbor -- which we defined as the part of Massachusetts Bay between Nahant and Hull. You can look up data from those counts:

https://032acf2.netsolhost.com/tasl.htm

Documenting where birds congregated, fed and roosted in the Harbor was what we did all those years. Without those counts we really don't have a comprehensive way to know where these birds are nowadays.

Anyway, here is the data from a tiny section of the area we call the "Harbor."

BHI--Deer Island, Suffolk, Massachusetts, US
Jan 27, 2024 10:01 AM - 1:30 PM
Protocol: Traveling
2.53 mile(s)
19 species

Brant  8
Greater Scaup  300
Common Eider  3000     Large rafts mixed in with other scoters.  Took off when hunters started shooting
Surf Scoter  500     Large rafts mixed in with other scoters.  Took off when hunters started shooting
White-winged Scoter  100
Black Scoter  250     Large rafts mixed in with other scoters.  Took off when hunters started shooting
Long-tailed Duck  5
Bufflehead  14
Common Goldeneye  8
Red-breasted Merganser  15
Horned Grebe  2
Razorbill  1
Ring-billed Gull  25
Herring Gull (American)  26
Great Black-backed Gull  6
Iceland Gull  1
Red-throated Loon  2
Common Loon  8
Common Raven  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S159963608

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)

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Soheil Zendeh
42 Baker Avenue
Lexington, MA 02421

[GLENN D'ENTREMONT]

Folks, if I may add to this discussion, the Quincy CBC was designed to count the coastal birds from Squantum to Long Island (no longer available), Hull Gut to Minot (North Scituate-Glade's Road).  The math did not work and only Hull Gut and Cohasset Harbor is included in the far eastern/northeastern part of the circle.  The center is in the Back River in Weymouth.

 

Every year a group counts ducks as they leave Boston Harbor at dusk through Hull Gut.  This year we saw little change from the recent counts we have done.  This should reflect accurately there was little change to eider and scoter numbers in the south harbor.

 

Historically there is a large raft of eiders between Long Island, Nut Island and Deer Islands.  These are not part of the flight which runs through Hull Gut which would clear out Hingham and Quincy Bays.

 

Last Sunday's trip would not have covered this area either.

 

Glenn

Glenn d'Entremont: gdentr...@comcast.net Stoughton, MA