Mike O'Leary and I attempted to locate the bird this morning, and found a Long-tailed Duck that appears to be a female, or at least doesn't look like the bird found yesterday. In the photo below, it's the bird on the left, next to a Red-breasted Merganser. I should be able to post some better photos later.
Long-tailed Duck is the 260th species on the Dearborn list.
Most of the Rouge River is still frozen solid. The areas in the Ford Rouge boat slip and adjacent waters stay open all year. Other waterfowl present included a couple hundred Common Mergansers, at least 24 Red-breasted Mergansers, Canvasbacks, a few Ruddy Ducks, Common Goldeneye, Redheads, and Greater Scaup. There were at least 20 Great Black-backed Gulls -- a species not recorded in Dearborn until 1987. Ten sort of miserable looking Great Blue Herons hugged the shoreline, as did 10 Black-crowned Night-herons. There is a small pond inside the plant next to the river that accepts warm-water discharge from one of the steel mill facilities, and a bunch of night-herons have wintered there for years.
Many thanks to Larry Urbanski for this great find.
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