Common Pochard at Freshwater Lagoon, Humboldt, CA

Best of terrible digiscope photos of Common Pochard
This morning Ken Brown, Bruce Labar and I met at 4 AM at the I-5/Hwy. 512 Park and Ride and headed south to try for the Common Pochard that has been at Freshwater Lagoon in Humboldt County, CA for the last week or more. We managed to beat the Olympia and Portland traffic and made great time until getting to the Hwy 199 cutoff from I-5 to coastal 101. On this trip through the coastal range we hit significant snow, slow trucks and lost a couple of hours or so in time at 30 mph through the curves. Still we got to the lagoon about 1:45 PM and in steady rain we fairly easily found the Common Pochard male among an estimated 150 Canvassbacks, 30 Redheads, and lots of Ring-necked and Ruddy Ducks. We were pretty happy and spent a bit less than an hour looking at the lifer for all of us along with the rest of the waterfowl, a Red-throated loon, Western grebes, horned grebes, lots of coots, and helping a local young Humboldt State University birder without a scope get onto the bird. The rest of the day chased the Tufted Duck Acadia Marsh and a Great Gray Owl nearby both without success. Overall a good day and more than ready for a full nights sleep after today and doing the Kitsap CBC with Ken and Heather yesterday from 4AM- 5 PM. Lifer #711 in the bag.