On February 15, 2019, I visited a favorite spot along Mill Creek in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania to see what ducks and geese were there that had not been there all winter. With the increase in daylight each succeeding day, those waterfowls' hormones will be stirred and they will start to move around restlessly. That day along Mill Creek, I counted 44 black ducks, and saw at least a few each of common mergansers, American wigeons, green-winged teal and northern pintail ducks, all of which joined the locally wintering mallard ducks and Canada geese on Mill Creek, and the fields and meadows bordering that waterway. Migrant ducks were on the move!
Toward the end of February, various kinds of ducks, plus Canada geese, snow geese and tundra swans, were suddenly being seen on southeastern Pennsylvania waterways and human-made impoundments where they weren't in winter, indicating the start of their migrations north and/or west. Thousands of fish-eating common merganser ducks were spotted on the Octoraro Lake of southern Lancaster County, as they have been in years past. Tens of thousands of snow geese and a few thousand tundra swans landed on the 400-acre impoundment at Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area by late February.
It's exciting and inspiring to experience a variety and big numbers of migrant waterfowl in spring. There were several each of northern pintails, American wigeons, ring-necked ducks and common mergansers on Middle Creek's impooundments in late February, as there are every spring. At that time, too, hundreds of canvasback ducks and several scaup ducks were seen on the lower Susquehanna River. That is an unusual number of cans in southern Lancaster County!
As they have done every early March in the last few years, several each of American wigeons and ring-necked ducks floated on a farm pond just outside New Holland in Lancaster County. Meanwhile, a few hundred snow geese, several hundred Canada geese, and a couple hundred each of American wigeons, ring-necked ducks and common mergansers were noted on Lake Ontelaunee in Berks County, Pennsylvania. By mid-March, several tens of thousands of snow geese, 5,000 tundra swans, close to a thousand northern pintails, and several ring-necked ducks were at Middle Creek. These random sightings of some of the waterfowl species that regularly pass through southeastern Pennsylvania are only the beginning of waterfowls' early-spring migrations in 2019, as in every year. And after a stay of a few weeks, more or less, depending on the weather, the overwintering, but now restless ducks, geese and swans continue their migrations north and/or west to raise young.
But of all the kinds of ducks, geese and swans engaged in the great spring waterfowl migrations in southeastern Pennsylvania each year, snow geese create the greatest spectacles. They are the biggest single attraction for a few weeks in March at Middle Creek. Up to 120,000 snow geese land on Middle Creek's lake to rest and loudly socialize. From there they go to nearby harvested corn fields to consume corn kernels and rye fields to eat green blades of rye.
At dusk during many evenings in March, silhouetted flocks of snow geese leave their feeding fields to return to Middle Creek's lake. Upon arriving at the impoundment, each gang of honking snows swings into the wind, each goose sets its broad wings like parachutes and floats lightly to the water. Soon, thousands of snows are on the lake, while many more groups of them are turning into the wind to land on the water and other flocks are coming across the sky from the fields. This returning to the impoundment, flock after noisy flock, might go on for a half hour or more until all several thousand snow geese are on the lake.
Sometimes, the whole mass of snow geese rises from the lake at once, but in an orderly fashion, as befits such large numbers. One end of the flock rises and the rest of the gang flies up, in turn, like a flat bed sheet being lifted. Once aloft, those thousands of snow geese, in one big, swirling mass, block out the background scenery.
My wife and I have sat in our car a few times at Middle Creek when thousands of snow geese came down to the fields close all around us. Those geese were so near to us that we felt we were part of their massive, ear-splitting gatherings.
Snow geese and tundra swans have a few traits in common, including feeding on corn kernels, rye greens and grasses. Both kinds nest on the treeless Arctic tundra. Both are mostly white, but the swans are larger with long necks and the geese have black wing tips. Snows fly in great masses, while the swans fly in much smaller groups. And each species has its own section of Middle Creek's
lake to roost on.
The great waterfowl migrations in March are filled with excitement and inspiration. Many people certainly enjoy them.
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