Harlequin Duck in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

During the month of December, 2019 there were rare ebird alerts that a Harlequin Duck was being seen on the Susquehanna River near Williamsport, Pa. I decided to 'chase' this bird and hopefully make it my last counted bird for 2019. I contacted a few follow Audubon members and we set off on the 1 1/2 hour drive to locate the species.

We arrived in Williamsport around 10am. We then drove around for another 45 minutes trying to locate the parking area near the river that we could see but didn't know how to reach. We finally got accurate directions and arrived at the parking area. We parked and walked up on the river dike and starting scanning the river for the Harlequin.

We spotted Common Goldeneye and Common Mergansers but no Harlequin. Was the trip going to end a DNFTB (did not find the bird).

After about 15 minutes, I finally spotted a smaller duck in the rapids near some 'islands' in the river. As we all trained our scopes on the duck...sure enough it was the Harlequin.

Harlequin Duck

After a few high fives, we watched the Harlequin for about 20 minutes and then packed up our gear and headed home....having successfully added the Harlequin Duck as the last recorded species for 2019 and a lifer for everyone's Pennsylvania bird (waterfowl) list.

A nice way to end the 2019 birding year.

Until next time.