A few days ago I headed to the Lake Champlain Bridge to check out the large numbers of ducks that had been congregated in that region of the lake. I stopped briefly in Westport on my way down without much luck, and then headed south to Port Henry spotting a flock of about 200 bohemian waxwings on the way.
The Port Henry boat launch had a nice collection of ducks. There were mallards, black ducks, ring-necked ducks, redhead, bufflehead, common mergansers, hooded mergansers, and common goldeneye. Several other people were there looking too. We were all looking for a common pochard – a Eurasian species that had first been discovered by Vermont birders at the Champlain Bridge and that since had moved to Port Henry.
The bird had caused a considerable stir, drawing birders to the area from all over the northeast to see it. After all, pochards are rarely found in North America, and when they are found it most often happens in the Aleutians or perhaps along the west coast. But the hopes of many birders for the rare find were dashed when bands were discovered on the pochard's legs – almost certainly a sign that the bird was not wild, but had escaped from captivity (which means it can't be counted on a birder's list). But many birders – like me – were interested in seeing the bird anyway and in getting a look at the numbers on the leg bands – for the slight chance the band could be traced to a wild banded bird from northern Europe. To date that hasn't happened, and the bird is still assumed to be an escapee despite what birders may wish it to be.
As it turned out, we did not find the pochard in the mix at Port Henry anyway. I did, however, find a male Barrow's goldeneye, a duck often difficult to find – particularly in the east. The bird was mixed in with a large group of common goldeneye and wasn't too far out which afforded us nice looks. We watched it for a while.
After that it was off to the Champlain Bridge where I was hoping to find the pochard among the other ducks which were hanging out in that area. On the drive I found a light morph rough-legged hawk sitting in a tree on Crown Point – always a fun hawk to find in the winter. After briefly checking out D.A.R. State Park in Vermont, I worked my way back to the bridge where a large group of birders was gathered on the Vermont side (using the state historic site for parking). The water around and south of the bridge was largely frozen, but there were thousands of ducks swimming and feeding across the icy expanse on the open water of the lake north of the bridge.
Everyone had their scopes pointed across the ice at the distant flocks. When I arrived a few folks already knew where the pochard was hanging out and thankfully it didn't take me long to find it. It was associating with a couple canvasbacks – a duck to which it is related. After watching it for a while, I started the painstaking process of sifting through the ranks of ducks bobbing and diving at various distances in the water. There were enormous numbers of greater and lesser scaup and common goldeneye. I found many of the same species which I had seen at Port Henry, but I was interested in finding another European species – a tufted duck – which had been noted when the pochard was initially found. While tufted ducks are seen from time to time in the northeast, they are rare and it is a good find as a result.
The bird had been seen earlier that day but hadn't been found for over an hour when I arrived and no one seemed to know where it was in the throng. As other birders left, I searched and searched but never did pull it out of the mass of birds. Finally the ducks flew further away into the lake – quite mercifully – and I had to give up the search. As I returned to the car a dark morph rough-legged hawk flew overhead. That was followed by a look at a light morph bird after I drove across the bridge – perhaps the same bird I saw on my way out along Crown Point – not bad compensation for missing the tufted duck. I'll have to return to the bridge to see if I can find it another time.
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