Yellow-crowned Night Herons are spotted regularly during migration in southern Wisconsin, and may even breed rarely in the state, with a few reports in the Wisconsin Breeding Bird Atlas.
You can spot the Blue-winged Teal’s dabbling blue-gray head—with a distinctive white crescent in front of the eye—in wetlands this time of year, having just recently arrived.
Redheads spend their winters in large mixed flocks on the Gulf Coast and sometimes in the Great Lakes. These gregarious, social ducks can be found huddled with other ducks and waterfowl in flocks up to 60,000 on large bodies of water during winter.
Photo by Martin Knippel/Audubon Photography Awards
"A Garganey observed last week at Zeloski Marsh is only the second individual reported in Wisconsin history. This bird is a twitcher’s dream. Is it rare? Yup. Did someone provide decent directions? You bet. Does it have a unique look? Yes. Easy to get to? Mhmm."
Looking into research on Lesser Scaup, I came across numerous articles about diet, lipid stores, and reproductive output. All highly cited, and most published within the last twenty years. As it turns out, Scaup remain a bit of a mystery, despite all of this research.