Gone!

Bufflehead female stretching her wings

Where have all the sea ducks gone?  They were here through most of December, although not in great numbers, but you would be hard pressed to see any now.  We are having an unusually mild winter like most of the East coast and the owner of the dock where I have permission to shoot speculated that was the cause when I spoke with him this past week. 

I wonder if it isn't a lack of food, however.  Some events can take an extended time to unfold, years in some cases.  Decades ago, Hurricane Agnes devastated the submerged aquatic vegetation native to the Bay.  In some cases, the grasses never did recovered.  This past summer, Hurricane Irene dropped an enormous amount of rain on the Chesapeake Bay watershed.  From NOAA satellite images, it was startling to see the amount of soil being carried into the Bay from the Susquehanna, Potomac and other rivers.  The silt itself can create large die-offs of submerged grasses, but the infusion of Nitrogen run-off also creates algae blooms and dead zones that devastate the food chain, starting with the smallest dinoflagellates and working its way up the food chain.  I suspect the lack of ducks has more to do with Irene than the mild winter.