Waterfowl Prowl, the Second Day

The weather was just fine for a Waterfowl Prowl (low 40s) but my day on the lakes was a bit underwhelming.  Working off my expedition on Friday, I took a look at seven of my town's southern and eastern ponds and lakes, several of which are historically reliable duck sites.  (For locals, the largest of these are Lakes Wheeler and Johnson.)  The ducks were out there all right.  Among the species I toted up, almost all with the definitely needed help of my Bushnell scope were American Coots, American Wigeon, Bufflehead Ducks, Canada Geese, Double Crested Cormorants, Gadwall, Hooded Mergansers (shown), Mallard Ducks, Northern Shovelers, Ring-necked Ducks,  and Ruddy Ducks.  Why underwhelming?  For one, we had a stiff west wind all day and that tended to drive the waterfowl out to the western edges of water bodies.  And a lot of those places were not accessible to me.  I note that in my travels I was confined to non-western vantage points 78% of the time.  Having the spotting scope helped bridge most of those gaps but there's only so much that magnification can accomplish---and forget good photos!  My other problem: even when I was in range the blasted birds fled me as fast as they could.  Something about my appearance annoyed them; perhaps the shininess of the optics.  All day I was outrun.  But I did enjoy what I could see on the far side of the ponds!  And the New Years Waterfowl Prowl is complete.  A great test drive before another annual ritual in a few weeks' time...