I managed to take a spin around the Wildlife Drive myself late this afternoon, and got to experience those beautiful gull concentrations - you have got to love those gulls, to see them sleeping on their bellies on the ice, heads tucked in. Arriving at Pool 1A, I was surprised to find the open water patches empty, until I noted a handsome coyote trotting his/her way across the center of the Pool on the ice. My treat was a rare SNWR encounter these days - a snowy owl, on the Wildlife Drive near the SW corner of Pool 1A. 

This is a reliable location for SEOW between Jacob & McGregory Rds.

 IWMMP survey highlights along with non-waterbirds observed.  Six of the Short-eared Owls could be observed at the Bishop Rd platform at the west end of Curtis Rd, past the refuge headquarters at dusk.  There was an incredible concentration of gulls on the Shiawassee River and Mallards both on the river and in Pool 1A.  The Mallard number is very conservative and could have easily eclipsed 20,000.  They were in a massively packed group setting on the pool's ice, along the river, and in an open patch of water on Pool 1A.  At one point, a considerable number were in flight along with many gulls on the river that caused a dizzying mass of aerial flight.  Interestingly, I went back up river toward the end of the day to see what appeared to be tall light colored ghostly figures on the ice edge in the distance only to find a sizeable group of Sandhill Cranes that were not there earlier in the day.  Also, the gulls dramatically decreased at the end of the day to areas unknown.  The refuge continues to impress!

Per Monica Essenmacher

The incredible westerly winds had the bay churned up to the point of being problematic for waterfowl ID unless they were in flight.