AT THE POND
Since we are well into the month of February, the time has come to once again treat our duck and geese friends at Randall Park to a bag of cracked corn. This past Sunday we took them their monthly treat. I was hoping we would see some different ducks there, and as it turns out, we did. As soon as we pulled into our usual parking space, we saw a group of ducks off by themselves, and they looked a bit different from the usual Mallard ducks that we see.
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| Some kind of brown duck |
The ducks in this group all had bodies and heads that were various shades of brown. I am guessing that the lighter brown-colored ones are the females, and the darker ones are the males. I could see just a tinge of green on the heads of a couple of the males when the sun was hitting them at a certain angle. I tried to identify these ducks on Google, but there were so many possibilities that I gave up. I am guessing that they are some variation of Mallard, or they are in some kind of seasonal plumage. If anyone knows for sure, please let me know.
Once again, Linda took over the task of spreading out the corn while I shot video. It was a beautiful, crisp day with the sun out in full force.
I shot my video from two different angles and I was surprised to see that when the sun was hitting the ducks from a side angle, the head of the male Mallards appeared to turn blue! When the sun was hitting them straight-on, their heads were green. This was very interesting to see and I am sure it has something to do with the refraction of the sun's rays. You can see this very well in the video below.
We only had a couple of Canada Geese join the communal feeding as most of the other geese were over on the pond. It takes a while for word to get around the the food has arrived, so we saw a group of American Wigeons come up well after the feast had begun. And of course, there's always one guy who's late to the party no matter where it is.
We left the ducks and geese to their dinner and walked over to the pond to see what was happening there. The curious thing is that one end of the pond had a group of Canada Geese silently hanging out with a lone duck, and at the other end of the pond we had various ducks and geese, all mixed together and very loudly coming and going. I think the geese in the picture below are the "in" crowd of the pond.
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| There's one in every crowd |
Suddenly there was a ruckus off to one side of the "in" crowd. Two male Mallards were going at each other in a circle, perhaps fighting over a female (isn't that the way it always is?). After the fight, there was one male duck quietly taking a quick bath. I suppose he was getting himself all spiffied-up to take his girl out!
WELCOME BACK BLACKBIRD
Back at the house, we had a visit from one of our bird friends who is a regular in the summer but one we seldom see during the winter...the Red-Winged Blackbird. I caught this guy snacking underneath the front yard feeder. You can just barely glimpse a touch of his red epaulets as he flies off.
PARTING SHOT
Summer Girl was outside basking in the sun this morning, so I decided not to bother her. So for the Parting Shot this week, I am going to share a picture of her sister, Precious Baby, also more widely known as Peeber. I've been taking some pictures off of disks and putting them onto our desktop computer this week. I came across this picture below and it was just too sweet not to share.
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| Snug as a bug in a rug |
That's all for this week, my friends. I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's Day, and remember...be sure to tell your loved ones just how much you love them! See you next week.
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