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Woodlake 1/28/00



Hello!

Well, I was out doing work at Woodlake (the coot disease study for the
state and federal partnership) here in Moore Co. yesterday. The lake is
almost totally frozen except for the small areas the duck have kept open.
The ice is significant (about an inch thick here on my lake) too.  Given
the overnight temps in the single digits the last few nights and daytime
temps around freezing, I guess it is not surprising.  However, this is not
completely a bad thing: only a few holes of open water mean that one can
check for just about all the waterfowl very easily.  All in all, there were
13 species of waterfowl present in the seven open holes of water I found;
about ~2500 birds:

Mute Swan
Pied-billed Grebe
Canada Goose
Canvasbacks
Bufflehead
Ring-necked Duck
Ruddy Duck
Mallard
Black Duck
American Wigeon
Gadwall
Hooded Merganser
American Coot


More Hooded Mergansers (~500) together than I have ever seen in my life-
quite a sight!  Also, a pair of Black Swans was seen to days ago but I did
not see them yesterday.  I will check on my return trip today.  Some years
ago this species was introduced to the lake by a local individual and some
got away and began a small feral population. Apparently the lack of open
water brought two descendants back to the lake!


Keep your fingers crossed that the fall-out from our next storm is minimal.
It will not take much ice in our area to create a nightmare since there is
*still* severe icing as well as snow everywhere from Monday's storm.
Woodlake, being in th eastern edge of the county did not get it as badly
(less ice and about a foot of snow) as we did here but it is just plain
nasty all around us!

Susan M. Campbell
Whispering Pines, NC

ncaves@utinet.net