Since 1980, we have conducted two waterfowl pair counts at Goose Pond each year: An early count in late April or early May with a focus on Mallards, and a later one with a focus on other nesting waterfowl. When conducting these counts, we also record numbers for all species.

On May 2, 2019 we counted 23 Mallard pairs and 94 drakes that would give us a count of 117 Mallard pairs in the local area. Drakes gather together once the hens they paired up with are nesting. We found the DNR waterfowl pairs count protocol where drakes are also counted as representing a pair.

Last year on April 23, 2020 we counted 46 Mallard pairs and 83 drakes. That’s a record at Goose Pond: 129 pairs! It was amazing to see the number of pairs circling the prairie restorations with the female looking for the ideal nesting site.

On April 26, 2021 Graham and Mark counted all the birds for 2.75 hours. Conditions are rapidly changing this year compared to record high water levels in 2019 and very high water levels in 2020. The water this year in the shallow wetlands is drying up rapidly.

*American Golden Plover photo by Kelly Colgan Azar*

The highlight of the count was finding 115 American Golden Plovers in a cornfield near Sue Ames Prairie. Golden Plovers like to forage in uplands, and we look forward to seeing them in the future foraging in our short grass prairie restorations. The previous Goose Pond record for American Golden Plovers was Aaron Stutz’s count of 100 on October 9, 1999.

This year we found 39 Mallard pairs and 48 drakes, for a total of 87 pairs. While a lower total than last year, this is still way above the average of around 40 pairs. We also counted 48 Blue-winged Teal, 10 Northern Shovelers and 17 Green-winged Teal, which are all species that nest at Goose Pond, but they’re in the thick of migration so we don’t count these numbers toward our nesting tallies. We’ll count those later on.

*Wood duck pair photo by Richard Armstrong*

Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers are early nesters. At our four duck boxes, we have a hen Wood Duck in one box and a hen Hooded Merganser in another. What surprised us most was finding seven Hooded Merganser females on a created pond on our parcel acquired last year from Judi Benade. The pond must be full of fat-head minnows. Hooded Mergansers do not breed until their second year… So it looks like we will be erecting more duck nesting boxes!

Other waterfowl we saw during the count are still in migration and heading north or northwest to breed, including the 33 Ring-necked Ducks, 23 Lesser Scaup and a pair of Buffleheads found on the count. We also had a flock of 100 Lapland Longspurs in migration that have a long journey ahead of them.

We also found two giant Canada Geese nesting on muskrat houses. These nests may hatch very soon.

Overall, we found 36 species and 1,073 birds. The most numerous were the 417 Red-winged Blackbirds, with two large flocks of 160 and 200, still in migration.

*Red-winged Blackbird at Goose Pond. Photo by Arlene Koziol*

On the 26th the first six Barn Swallows returned to the Jungemann barn on Madison Audubon’s Kampen Road property. We assume these swallows nested or were raised in the barn last year. Another species that we usually find is one or two Red-tailed Hawks. This year we found two pairs. Lacking woodlot habitat, red-tails are probably nesting in spruce trees in windbreaks around farmsteads.

We are looking forward to our 2nd pair count and hope that the teal, shovelers, and Ruddy Ducks will all stay and nest.

We hope you will visit Goose Pond in May to view the wetlands and enjoy the birds. And consider participating in the Great Wisconsin Birdathon by forming a team and going birding or supporting one of the many teams raising funds for bird conservation. Half of the funds that our “Reckless Wrens” team raises goes to Madison Audubon.

Written by Mark Martin, Goose Pond Sanctuary resident co-manager, and Graham Steinhauer, land steward