Quennell, it was cold...

With only a small window of birding opportunity available today, I opted for a check of Quennel Lake, Cedar.
With much of the water frozen the waterfowl was limited, but at least concentrated in the areas of open water.

A single juv trumpeter swan was swimming around forlornly.
Several lesser scaup were in the deeper water along with reasonable, if reduced, numbers of common merganser.
A dozen or so smart ring-necked duck (pictured) were in another area of unfrozen water. Seems silly now, but I remember twitching my first ring-necked duck at Stocks Reservoir in the Forest of Bowland, back in Britain in the mid 80s.
Pintail numbers were down considerably, as were green-winged teal with just 4 present, including one of the Eurasian/GW intergrades.
By contrast, the number of northern shoveler had gone up and around 20 birds were in the area.
The regular male American kestrel was hunting nearby.
A Wilson's snipe flew up from the edges of the nearer lake edge, and a typically garrulous killdeer made its presence felt, noisily.