A Ducky Education

A Ducky Education

When I write a post, I usually try to have a theme, or better yet a story to tell — something I saw, or something that happened to me while out tromping around. That’s been hard this winter because we’ve had so few birds visit.

We’ve had so few birds that I’ve had to start watching ducks.

Ducks are not my favorite birds, mostly because at first glance, they are all Mallards. The shiny green head is cool, but you’ve seen one Mallard, you’ve seen a million of them.

But my birding drought has forced me to look closer.

The first “other” ducks that were pointed out to me were Hooded Mergansers. I’ve seen so many of these diving ducks in the last few months that I’m wondering how I missed them all these years. Avoiding Mallards, I guess.

A medium sized brown duck sporting a brown mullet floats in calm water. Her beak is long narrow and yellow.
A medium sized duck with a brown body, black wings, throat and head, white breast floats in still water.He has a white patch outlined in black on its head, His beak is long, narrow and black.

I love the side-eye that the female Merganser is giving me, above.

Hooded Mergansers are not to be confused with Buffleheads, below. Hooded Mergansers have the big white patch outlined with black; Buffleheads, it is just out there, taking up a quarter of their heads. Also, notice the iridescence of the Bufflehead’s black — when the light shifts, it’s not black at all.

A small duck with a white body, black wings, and throat, white breast and patch on its head, floats in still water. His beak is short, broad and gray, and his head is iridescent black.

Male American Wigeons have green eye swoops and a white racing stripe from their blue bill across the top of their head.

A medium sized brown duck floats in still water. He is covered with different fine patterns over his body, wings and neck. He has a green swoop going from around his eye to the back of his head, and another stripe, this one white going from his blue bill across the top of his head.

And then …

… we saw Wood Ducks. Pow!

Two ducks, female and male, paddle in still water. The female, on the left, is mostly brown with white spots, and grayish head, and bill, and white eye ring. The male, on the right, looks like somebody decided to use all the colors in the box. He has tan sides, brown chest, black wings outlined in black and white stripes. He has a white ring around his neck that has an offshoot going up from his bill curving around to just under his red eye. The rest of his head is black, his bill is orange and the top of his head is green. Whew!

How did I ever miss these guys?

The male looks like somebody decided to use all the colors in the box. He has tan sides, brown chest, black wings outlined in black and white stripes. He has a white ring around his neck that has an offshoot going up from his bill curving around to just under his red eye. The rest of his head is black, his bill is orange and the top of his head is green. Whew!

I love how the male Wood Duck can flare his cheeks out, below. It almost looks like he has a mustache sweeping up from his bill.

In this photo, the male is coming straight at the viewer. He has tan sides, brown chest, black wings outlined in black and white stripes. The rest of his head is black, his bill is orange and the top of his head is green. As he comes head-on, he has a black flange of feathers ringed with white flared out from his cheeks.
The male looks like somebody decided to use all the colors in the box. He has tan sides, brown chest, black wings outlined in black and white stripes. He has a white ring around his neck that has an offshoot going up from his bill curving around to just under his red eye. The rest of his head is black, his bill is orange and the top of his head is green. Whew! He is walking across a patch of dried grass.

Finally, as my husband and I were calling it a day, we noticed something flitting over the water. My husband said “that is the oddest swallow I’ve ever seen.” He looked closer and asked me to take a photo. It was tough, because the thing was moving fast and changing direction constantly. But here’s what I got:

A fuzzy (sorry, best I could get) photo of a brown bat flying like a bat out of hell over a mottled blue background.

A bat!

To be clear: I know that a bat is not a duck, and so doesn’t fit my theme for this post. It is not even a bird, even though it flies.

But WTF? A bat, in March, in daylight, over a pond. No idea what it was doing out, except, you know, the whole we-completely-skipped-winter-this-year thing.

Sigh.

It’s going to be a loooong summer.

Amy Law

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