SEEING MASSES OF WINTERING WATERFOWL

      In winter, Barnegat Bay, a saltwater channel between New Jersey mainland and one of its barrier islands along the Atlantic Ocean shoreline, a little cove off Chesapeake Bay by Kent Island, Maryland, Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge off The Chesapeake in Maryland and Middle Creek's 400-acre lake in southeastern Pennsylvania are large, natural habitats that harbor inspiring masses of handsome, wintering swans, geese and ducks.  

     In winter, years ago, I visited those beautiful wildlife places in person, but now I see impressive hordes of tundra swans, Canada geese, Atlantic brant geese, snow geese, pintail ducks, shoveler ducks and American wigeon ducks through a live camera at each location and our home computer screen.  Either way, I now know, is as good as the other, each in its own way.  Readers, too, can visit in person or bring those places up on computer screens.  

     Great flocks of those kinds of majestic waterfowl are beautiful, and exciting to see on water where they rest and feed on aquatic vegetation, and land where they ingest green shoots of winter rye, and corn kernels from harvested corn fields.  But they are all particularly elegant sweeping swiftly across the chilly sky, especially at sunset when they are silhouetted black before the cold, ruddy horizon. 

     When leaving water on winter late afternoons, group after group after group of each species powers off the water in fast flight, into the wind for lift and flight control, then speeds before the sunset, and/or clouds, to a feeding field, each gang behind another, as if on, to us, an invisible aerial highway.  Over their intended feeding field, each flock of all these waterfowl species, in turn, swings into the wind for flight control, and each stately bird sets its wings to gracefully parachute to the field, one group after another, after another, as if following each other down a flight of stairs to the ground.  The birds' flights back to water follows the same patterns, except that each descending bird's reflection in the water races the bird to its landing spot on the water.  Each landing bird also extends its webbed feet down and out to ski on the water to a splashy stop.     

     Readers can visit these lovely, natural places on-line.  At Barnegat Bay, a few hundred Atlantic brant that feed in nearby salt marshes are the main waterfowl.  The brant, plus Canada geese,mallard ducks and other water bird species come to a fresh water brook that flows into Barnegat Bay to drink.

     A private individual feeds corn to small flocks each of tundra swans and Canada geese off a private dock in a cove by Kent Island in the Chesapeake Bay.  The swans and geese are so magnificent bobbing like tiny boats in the cove's wavelets.   

     At Blackwater Refuge, exciting flocks each of tundra swans, Canada geese, pintail ducks and shoveler ducks feed on flooded vegetation in shallow-water retention basins.  Sometimes great hordes of noisy, overwhelming snow geese join their relatives in those basins to feed on plant materials.

     And Middle Creek Wildlife Refuge, owned by the Pennsylvania Game Commission in southeastern Pennsylvania, harbors flocks of tundra swans and Canada geese, and snow geese late in Winter.  Those birds rest on ice and open water, neither of which offers any protection to the waterfowl from cold and biting winds.  But all species of waterfowl have two layers of feathering that keeps them warm and dry, even through winter.  

     All these elegant species of swans, geese and ducks, and other kinds, are exciting and inspiring to see, either in person or on line.   Get on-line to see some of these waterfowl species, and other life, throughout the world.        

      

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