I am only posting this as I didn't see anything on this listserve today about the massive movement of Mergansers on Lake Erie today.  Most interesting to me were all the Common Mergansers flying east along the shoreline.  Thousands of Mergansers flying east were real far out just above the water/ice and were to far for me to ID but some of the groups that were closer in were sometimes all Common Mergansers, sometimes all Red-breasted and sometimes mostly Red-breasted with a few Common mixed in.  I was at Sims Park in Euclid, Hospice of Western Reserve near E. 185th & Lakeshore and Wildwood Park.  The shoreline is mostly frozen with only a few open spots.  While others saw thousands I saw somewhere around 800 Common Mergansers which is a low count.  I had been at Wildwood Tuesday 1/19 and the marina was half frozen so I was surprised when I went in the afternoon and it was mostly open today and was full of Common Mergansers.  There were at least 130 in the water when I arrived but the Common Mergs kept flying overhead and many were dropping in and taking off the whole time so the numbers there were much higher.  When I was at Sims and the Hospice I kept looking to the west waiting for more mergansers to fly by and sometimes the groups of all Common Mergansers were the ones flying the highest real close to shore and you had to look almost straight up to see them.  The last time I saw the King Eider at Sims Park was Tuesday 1/19 when the shoreline only had a small amount of ice in the water.
Nancy Anderson,Richmond Hts, OH https://www.flickr.com/photos/nancy_a

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