Wisconsin Statewide Birding Report 11.8.10Waterfowl migration is in full swing across the state. Swan numbers have begun to build on the Upper Mississippi River. Pools 8 and 9 between La Crosse and Ferryville are holding 5-10,000 swans to date. Those numbers should continue to build throughout the next 2-3 weeks until freeze up. Canvasbacks and other diving ducks are now at peak along the Upper Miss Refuge. More than 400,000 canvasbacks were counted in pools 8 and 9 on Monday. This could be a new count record! There are still good numbers of sandhill cranes using traditional staging areas and whooping cranes are still lingering at staging areas. Waterfowl numbers are starting to build on large inland lakes and along Lake Michigan. Aerial surveys east of Sturgeon Bay reported 60,000 goldeneyes earlier this week! Birders can also expect good numbers of loons on large inland lakes and along the Great Lakes over the next two weeks. Winter finches are starting to trickle into the state. Birders have been reporting a few white-winged crossbills, redpolls and good numbers of purple finch and pine siskins. Northern shrikes have returned to winter hunting territories and a few short-eared owls have been reported across the state in the last two weeks. As always, we encourage birders to submit their sightings to eBird (
www.ebird.org/WI) in order for us to better track migratory bird populations.
