Cranberry Bogs 2/12--Wood Duck

I went to the abandoned cranberry bogs on Dover Road this morning, hoping for a Wilson's Snipe. The walk got off to an inauspicious start, when the first bird I saw was the snipe's near cousin, an American Woodcock--dead. There are sections there where it wouldn't be surprising to come across a woodcock, but atop a hill next to a huge sandpit is not one of them. The bird looked freshly dead and didn't seem to show any signs of raptors at work. I know that some natural history museums might like it as a specimen, but since I have an aversion to dead animals, I left it there. Probably will make a snacky-poo for a vulture. 

I didn't find a snipe, though I know one is still there, but I did, finally, add a year bird to the list when I came across a trio of Wood Ducks. At first, they were so still that I had to look twice to make certain they weren't decoys but decoys rarely squeal and fly off before you can get a picture, so they're on the list. Other than that, not much else to report. For a moment I thought I might have a couple of Chipping Sparrows to add to the year list, but upon further inspection they turned out to be American Tree Sparrows, again. It's another instance of priming--I want Chipping Sparrow so I see Chipping Sparrow, even though American Tree Sparrow is usually the harder bird to find--though not this winter. 

As with seemingly every other body of water around here, the duckage was light--I counted 28 Ring-necked Ducks along with a couple of Hooded Mergansers, 3 Mallards, and a flying black duck. Yesterday, at Colliers Mills, I was so disgusted that the 4 ponds I check had not one specimen of waterfowl on any of them, not even a goose, that I drove two miles up Success Road to Success Lake where I triumphed with 3 Tundra Swans, a goose, a couple of black ducks, and a Bufflehead. We're not even halfway through February yet--I don't know how much more of nothing I can take. 

Today's little list: 

19 species
Canada Goose  40
Wood Duck  3
Mallard  3
American Black Duck  1
Ring-necked Duck  28
Hooded Merganser  2
Killdeer  1
Red-tailed Hawk  1
Northern Flicker  1
Blue Jay  2     Heard
Carolina Chickadee  3     Heard
Carolina Wren  1     Heard
Eastern Bluebird  7
American Robin  20
American Goldfinch  1
American Tree Sparrow  2
Song Sparrow  1     Heard
Red-winged Blackbird  10
Northern Cardinal  1     Heard