Seasonal visits of Mergansers to the Goodnow Flow and my Newcomb Adirondack Cabin
I don’t think common Mergansers are major waterfowl at the Flow – its more that they pass through in the edge seasons. I first noticed them in the fall of 2020. Light was stream down the lake in mid afternoon as the lake runs east to west, it was 3pm on 11/9/20. One of the Mergansers seemed to be doing a sun-salutation. Mind, one reason for me noticing them was my new relatively affordable Sigma 150-600 mm zoom lens that can ‘reach’ across the flow.
This season I was up to Newcomb early in April during a warm spell and they became a major lake feature when the ice was out which happened while I was there. You can see the differences between the males and females in a number of the shots. The images were clipped out of big files shot with the 600mm lens hand held – there may a touch of blurring as the lens is long and heavy. Click on thumbnail images in the gallery to get full-size pictures.
This year, or last winter, I had positioned an Reolink 410 IP camera to look at the beach that appears when the club drops the lake level. I was looking for wildlife using that as a route, it’s happened prior years but not so much this past winter. However, birds are active at the water edge now (Mid to late April 2021), as the lake level has come up a bit (that might mean the dam gates have been partly raised) and also the wind was at the angle blowing general ‘stuff’ into this corner of ‘my’ bay. One of the otters was also around. The Mergansers were having a party on camera multiple days and there is an additional Merganser-video in my channel.
The Goodnow flow is a man-made Adirondack lake south of 28N in Newcomb, the lake is private but the perimeter road provides access, via two routes, to the public Essex Chain.