Fwd: BBCLIST: Berrien Ross's Geese, etc-3/10/09

[matthysell at comcast.net]

To summarize Berrien Co geese of late, 

  

Several white-fronted and snow geese have been seen at the Galien farm pond off and on the last few days 


A couple White-fronted, up to 25 snow, and a Ross's-type goose have been seen at the Three Oaks Ponds 

  

A flock of about 40 snow and up to 14 Ross's-type geese were seen in the Scottdale Plains (the black rail field general area) this evening, found originally by Tim. 

  

Directions to these places: 

The Three Oaks ponds and the Galien farm pond are both off US 12.  Take I 94 to exit 4b and go east on US 12.  After about 4 miles turn north on Schwark Rd, cross the railroad tracks and pull off onto a small roped off mud parking spot and walk up to the chain-link fence to peer through at the Three Oaks Wastewater treatment ponds and middle dike 

To continue to the Galien farm pond go back to US 12, continue east about 6.5 miles and turn north on Cleveland road.  This bends through the town of Galien and as the road straightens as it leaves town there is a small farm pond partially hidden by some mildly rolling hills on the west side of the road. 

To get to the Scottdale plains you can either continue north 14 miles on Cleveland road to Linco Rd and turn east, continue about 3 miles on Linco and then start checking the fields on either side of the road which frequently hold waterfowl for the next mile and a half or so (bracketing the area where Scottdale T's onto Linco from the north and then T's off Linco to the south about a half mile to the east).  

OR to get to the Scottdale plains area you can take the Scottdale Rd exit 28 off I-94, continue south on M 139 for about 6.5 miles to Linco Rd and go east on Linco about a mile to reach the same birding area.   

  

The birds do move around, both Tim and I went through all 3 areas at different times and both were skunked in at least one but not the same location.  Three Oaks and Galien are roosting/staging areas, the Scottdale plains are a foraging area (there's also frequently geese in the flooding crossing the road on Rocky Weed Rd  just west off of Scottdale Rd a mile north of Linco). 

  

Photos at the 2 links below... 


Matt Hysell 


----- Forwarded Message ----- 
From: "Tim Baerwald" <digiscopingtim at gmail.com> 
To: bbclist at andrews.edu 
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:02:19 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: BBCLIST: Geese, etc-3/10/09 

 Hi, 
  I finally got in on the goose action this evening when I stumbled upon 40 Snow Geese, 1 Snow/Ross's hybridish Goose (blue phase) and 14 Ross's Geese in the field directly south of the west Linco/Scottdale Rds. intersection, after a few minutes the geese took off and flew north and eventually landed in a green field just north of the east Linco/Scottdale Rds. intersection (it sounds complicated, but it makes since when your standing out there). 

The geese spent over a hour feeding in this field and were still present when Matt Hysell and I left around 6:30 p.m. 

 Also, I had 1 GWF Goose at the Galien pond, and no geese at Three Oaks, I did have 
1 Lesser Black-backed Gull in a field along Schwark south of US-12 earlier in the afternoon. 

Tiscornia this morning yielded 12 WW Scoters, 2 RT Loons and 2 Great Black-backed Gulls. 

Photos of the Geese will be up on my web gallery in the next day or so, Matt Hysell has some up on his blog right now ( http://www.berrienbirder.blogspot.com ). 

Good Birding, 
   Tim Baerwald 

-- 
Tim Baerwald, 
Eau Claire, MI 
Phone: 
Home:269-944-1867 
Cell:269-240-4533 
http://picasaweb.google.com/DigiscopingTim
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