Eastern Orange County Lakes
Ring-necked ducks with a few Ruddies - Beaver Dam Lake - 11/23/25
Being well into the fall season, it is expected that we will start to see more and more ducks arriving on our ponds. Coming in from the north to find open water, some of these waterfowl will likely remain here until our lakes begin to freeze while others are stopping by on their way to points further south. Our birding club checked on several of the ponds in the eastern part of Orange County this morning where in the past we’ve had good luck finding fall fowl. Our first stop was the most productive. Beaver Dam Lake seems to attract good numbers of waterfowl in November. The only problem for birders is that the area is pretty much completely surrounded by residential property and there are only three places where the general public can park, get out, and survey the habitat. Of course, the ducks know this and it seems they “always” congregate at the most distant locations in regards to these pull-offs. Anticipating this, I armed my Nikon with my longest lens, a 180 - 600mm zoom. It was an overcast morning, so I opted not to add a telextender for more reach. That extra glass would cut down on the light and cause the images to be a bit more noisy (we used to call it “grainy” in the old days!). I was happy to get the image above of about a dozen Ring-necked ducks with a few Ruddy ducks in the foreground. With our scopes, the views were more than satisfactory.
Ruddy duck - Beaver Dam Lake - 11/23/25
We had a nice assemblage of waterfowl including those Ring-necks. Canada geese, Mute swans, Gadwalls, & Buffleheads. Ruddy ducks like the one pictured above were also present. Most were as I mentioned earlier a bit too far for a decent image, but this Ruddy adult male in non-breeding plumage took pity on me and gave me a quick “sail-by” when we pulled into a small park on the opposite side of the lake.
Mallards - Beaver Dam Lake - 11/23/25
Of course mallards were on the scene as well. On many lakes, when you see a mallard, it sees you and comes right over expecting a hand-out. These Mallards got the word that the birding “paparazzi” were here though and beat a hasty retreat to join their feathered friends on the opposite side of the pond. You know it’s going to be a tough day photographing birds when mallards don’t cooperate!
Cooper’s hawk - Beaver Dam Lake - 11/23/25
It wasn’t all about the waterfowl at Beaver Dam Lake today. Other birds of interest included a Palm(?) warbler, several woodpecker species, Belted kingfisher, Yellow-bellied sapsucker, Carolina wren and more…. 31 species in total. We might have had even more if it weren’t for the presence of this handsome Cooper’s hawk. This bird will tend to keep other smaller species at bay.
Next stop was Brown’s Pond. With even more distant shorelines, the birds were for the most part “scope birds”, but there were a few brief looks at some beautiful Common mergansers which quickly slipped behind a spit of land obscuring our view. Some of their cousins, the Hooded mergs, did make a showing, however. These are some of the finest looking birds in the waterfowl family with their mahogany flanks and black head with a pure white crest which flattens out or raises high. There were several male/female pair and we all got excellent looks at these fine specimens.
Male Hooded merganser - Brown’s Pond - 11/23/25
Great blue heron - Brown’s Pond - 11/23/25
Our parting shot was a distant (of course!) Great blue heron taking flight near the opposite shore. This is another bird that may choose to migrate as the season wears on (or not!). Often Great blues will stick around if we have a mild winter with open water still on our lakes and ponds. Let’s see what this winter brings.
