ERS 346 Outing #2

Time and Date: 19/09/23 15:21
Duration: 34 minutes
Location: Claire Lake, Waterloo, ON
Weather: 22, moderate breeze, No precip during the observation period, cloudy
Habitat: Shoreline, Lake, Urban

Since Metisse and I saw lots of species at Columbia Lake, we thought we would try a different lake in the Waterloo area. Claire Lake is a manmade lake nestled in a suburban area. On our walk from the car to the lake, we observed 2 Eastern Grey Squirrels chasing each other up a tree. Once we got to the lake, a Mallard walked right up to us. Around the lake, there was lots of goldenrod, aster, dogwood, and several willow trees. There was a large American Beech tree around where we were observing. The shoreline was relatively small and we were unable to walk very far along the lake. Many houses backed onto the lake. We spotted roughly 30 Mallards across the lake, and when they spotted us, they all swam over. It's clear that people in this neighbourhood feed the ducks because they did not fear us at all. We did not see any more wildlife during this outing which was quite disappointing. We ended up cutting this outing short because it started pouring rain and we ran back to the safety of the car.

We noticed that all of the Mallards present were brown. None of them had the green head that is typical of male breeding Mallards. This is because male Mallards molt into their breeding plumage later in the fall. It is expected that mallards in breeding plumage will be observed in later observations.

Posted on November 24, 2019 01:15 AM by kcaruso