Ducks in the Artwork

Mother Wood Ducks

Please note:  THE PHOTO IN THIS POST IS NOT MINE.

It was taken from the Wood Duck Society page, at http://www.woodducksociety.com/qanda.htm .  Please visit that website if you would like to learn more about wood ducks.
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Wood ducks make their nests in holes in trees and in wood duck boxes built especially for them.  They like to nest near the edges of ponds.  Mother wood ducks lay about 15 eggs in one brood.  Their babies are able to swim within 24 hours of hatching.

Photo taken from the Wood Duck Society page, at http://www.woodducksociety.com/qanda.htm .

When the time is right, and after checking for nearby predators, the mother wood duck calls to her babies from the ground or the water underneath their nest.  She uses a particular call, and they leap from their nest like fuzzy little paratroopers.  Depending on the height of the nest, they may jump from 50 feet or more.  They land near their mother, and never return to the nest again.

Ducklings face many predators. Even before hatching they are subject to raccoon and snake attacks.  In the water they are gobbled up by large fish and snapping turtles.  On land, they are prey to mink, fox, and owl.  A mother wood duck keeps a weather eye out for dangers and will quickly lead the ducklings away into tall grasses to hide. Sometimes she will even feign injury to lead predators away from her young.

In 60 or 70 days, the ducklings that are left alive are able to fly.  That's not a very long time to teach these young ones all they need to know to face the world successfully.

If they survive this precarious beginning, they still face the threat of duck hunters who employ powerful tactics to call them in and woo them with promises of safety among a floating flock of decoys.  Wood ducks are one of the most popular game birds in North America.  So - yeah, a rough beginning and no easy life.  They have to be on their guard all the time.  

As I researched wood ducks, I was struck by the correlation between mother wood ducks and those of us trying to help young people grow up in this world.  While baby wood ducks can swim soon after hatching, they are still novices in the wider world and subject to many dangers of which they have no knowledge or experience.  In the same way, young people leave home at tender ages.  They are equipped with many abilities but are not always aware of potential dangers around them.  They don't yet have the experiences that we older folks have.

Like the mother wood duck, we parents, aunties and uncles, grandparents and youth leaders can call to them and invite them to follow us on safe paths.  We can raise the alarm when dangers threaten.  And we can do our best to help them sail in safe waters. 

We have a distinct advantage over our feathered friends, too.  We have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves us, and who knows the beginning from the end.  He knows the plans He has made for us.  Through prayer, and personal revelation, we can receive inspiration on how to help these young ones leave the nest and thrive.  Life will not always be easy, but when we rely on the gospel of Jesus Christ, we will have a sure foundation to lead them along. 

Hybrid Mallard

Does this mallard look a little different to you?  His mottled breast leads me to believe that it is - a cross between two similar kinds of waterfowl.

Wood Ducks

Someday I will get a better shot of a wood duck, but for now I'll take what I can get.

Hyperion and I were hiking in a rarely visited area of an island in the Mississippi when I photographed a passing pair of wood ducks.

They were far away and obscured by trees, but with the magic of digital zoom, we can see enough markings to know what we are looking at.

Wood ducks are beautiful little ducks, and the males are iconic for their brightly colored plumage, with green and purple on their heads and white stripes.  They have red eyes, with red and yellow on their bills.

Wood ducks have shorter wings than other ducks, which help them fly though woodlands, where they nest in tree cavities, and in wood duck boxes.  Their claws (rare in ducks) help them grip the bark where they perch.

They prefer shallow, marshy waters and ponds, where they can feed easily.  Besides aquatic food sources, they also eat acorns.

Wood ducks float higher on the water than other ducks, so that is something to remember when trying to identify them at a distance.

Something unique about wood ducks is that they are the only North American duck to have two broods per season.

Wood ducks are also called summer ducks and Carolina ducks.

Common Mergansers - An Unmatched Pair

Grabbed a few shots of waterfowl on the river Saturday.  Came up with this lovely, unmatched pair of common mergansers.

The male and female look nothing alike, as far as coloring goes.  However, they do have the same basic body shape and bill shape.

The male is white, with a greenish-black head, black back feathers, and a red bill.

The female is more of an overall silver-grey with a white chin patch, rusty brown head (with crest) and a red bill.

Common mergansers are sometimes called sawbills because of their serrated beaks - the only ducks to have such a feature. Another interesting fact about them is that the females are crested, but the males are not.

They may not look like a matched set, but these two were very happy to be sailing along together, and in a relatively short time they will be building a nest and sitting on some eggs!

I've written about mergansers before, here:
 http://foundonthetrail.blogspot.com/2013/02/another-merganser.html

Goldeneye

The duck on the left - with the white patch on its cheek?

That, my friends, is a Common Goldeneye - my first!  And it is a male.

The females are brown-headed, have darker bodies, and don't have the white patch on their face.  In fact, I am pretty sure that is a female on the right, in the foreground.

As for the fellow in the back, I can't make a positive ID on him.  He has a different color scheme (note the black chest that runs down to the water line with no white on his neck) and is bigger than the other two.  I'm guessing he is a canvas back.

Hazy Day

I scurried out for a walk yesterday morning, in spite of the lowering clouds.  I guess I thought that if I could just get out into the woods in time, the rain would hold off just for me, and I could get in a full walk.  No such luck.

When I arrived at Pigeon Creek Park, everything seemed gray and still.  Then I got out of the car.  Something about the overcast sky gave a luminosity to the changing leaves, and everything green seemed to glow with a faint inner light.

The air was filled with chirps, trills and chips.  There were sparrows, cardinals, goldfinches, red-winged blackbirds, and even crows and jays.

I spent some time trying to I.D. a new bird I heard among the dead and dying cup plants, that towered over me like a forest in their own right, but again - no luck there.  I taped the sound in hopes of identifying it later, when I got back home.

A squirrel kept running up and down the path, like a mad man.  I wondered what he was up to, but figured it had to do with seeds and nuts.

The goldfinches were as secretive as ever, dashing about in their perfect camouflaged suits.

The goldfinch is right in the center of this photo, in the angle of the center forked branches.

A black-capped chickadee came a little closer.

The woods were glooomy.

A couple of frogs who were pond-side gave me a start as they leaped away from my advancing footsteps.  I guess they were as scared of me as I was of their sudden movement in the bushy grass..

Coming out of the woods and onto the river, I took a look at the the arched shore, hoping for new waterfowl, or any waterfowl to photograph.  Not much was stirring but a couple of pairs of mallards - far down the beach.

I knew the killdeer were out there too, but I just couldn't see them.

I went out to the first point, walking into grey nothingness.  The water was the same color as the sky.  Rain began to fall.  A nuthatch tapped quietly on the tree nearest me, seeking insects under the bark.

As I turned back to the sandy shoreline, a sandpiper just couldn't stand it anymore, and burst from its cover in the marshy grasses - a blur of brown and white.

Another bird flew across my field of view, and landed on a bare branch - a northern flicker.  I love the splash of red they wear on the napes of their necks!

It was then that I heard a faint call.  It sounded like it came from out over the water.  I wasn't sure what kind of a call it was - and no birds were in sight.

The sky was bare, so I scanned the shoreline, looking for possible herons and egrets.  It didn't sound like a heron's grumpy croaking, but I don't know what kind of sound they make when they are happy or interacting with loved ones.  So I looked - but saw nothing.

After some time, I heard the call again, muffled and faint.  Then saw a big bird in the sky - making a beeline for the tree tops.  It was so far away, I couldn't tell what it was, even when I zoomed in on it with my camera.

A couple of minutes later, I heard more calling and saw two birds racing away from the tree tops.

At first I thought it might be a smaller bird mobbing a crow away from its nest, or a crow chasing a hawk.  I even wondered if it were a hawk and a vulture having a squabble, but the calls didn't match any of these birds.  That's when I guessed these might be eagles.  Eagles have that distinctive ratcheting kind of call.

It wasn't until I got home and zoomed way in on the photos that I was able to see the white heads and realized that yes, this was a pair of bald eagles.

Are  they nesting on that point off Pigeon Creek Park?  Have they just arrived from the north, or do they live here year round?

 Or, are these the ALCOA eagles, Liberty and Justice?  The plant is about a mile downriver, near the tower and smokestack pictured here:

I'll probably never know.  But here's a link to the ALCOA eagle website for your reading pleasure.  You can also get to their eagle cam from here:
 http://www.alcoa.com/locations/usa_davenport/en/info_page/eaglecam.asp

The White Duck Mystery

From my early elementary years on, I have always been a big Nancy Drew fan, and after reading about her mystery adventures, I always wanted to discover and solve a few of my own.  Well, on Wednesday, I bumped right into one.  I was walking out at Smith's Island and what did I see?  Two white ducks!

Now, I am an amateur bird watcher, but I do know enough to know that white ducks like this are not generally wild.  They looked exactly like your typical domestic duck found on a farm.  But what were they doing out here, in this wild marsh on the river?  I have walked this trail for three years and never seen a domestic duck here before.  How strange!

I took several photographs, and noted that they were swimming around very companionably with two mallard hens.  They were grazing on the plants at the bottom of the marsh, and spent more time with their heads under water than above.  I strained to see any markings of any kind that would help me identify them - if they really were some kind of wild breed.  Nada.  They were white, white, white, with orange bills and black eyes.  I decided that they had to be escapees from some nearby farm.

Quite curious by now, I contacted my ranger friend who works for the Army Corps of Engineers out there.  He revealed the mystery to me!  (Thank you, Ranger Steve!)

As it turns out, someone released this pair of domestic ducks at the marsh a few months ago, and they have been happily living there ever since.

Now, I've heard of kittens being dropped off on farms, but I've never heard of farms dropping off ducks at nature preserves before.  I'd love to know the rest of this story!  And, I am wondering how well they will winter.  Time will tell.

Anything Out There?

I had a limited amount of time yesterday, when I took my walk.  My goal was to photograph at least one living thing, and then get to work on time.  The world looked bleak and cold, and at first there didn't seem to be much stirring.  Then I actually got out of the car.

I first saw seagulls, soaring through the frigid air over the open river.  Others were conserving their energy, and heat.  Theirs was the first call of the morning.

The chorus was then taken up by sparrows, chipping away in the tree tops.  I could not find them, but they were near.  

Next I had the fun of seeing squirrel tracks in the snow, and marveled at the indentation of each little paw pad.  They left plenty of tracks dashing about from tree to tree.

Then I spotted a lovely pair of mallards on the water.  They are common enough, but as the hen preened I was reminded of how they waterproof their feathers against the wet, and how marvelously adapted they are to survive in the cold.

Walking further along I heard the cry of a Canada goose and had the pleasure of seeing two pairs come in for a landing just down the bank from me.  I know they are a nuisance in public parks, and for private land owners, but I can never quite lose my awe of their ability to fly and of their beautiful, powerful shapes. 

I then traced a set of mammal tracks down an embankment and over some big rocks to the edge of the water.  The tracks were fresh, and some of them were tinted with brown from a point where the creature had stopped to scrabble in a muddy hole along the way.  I've examined these tracks closely, but cannot tell what animal made them for sure.  Any help from you readers would be greatly appreciated.  Post your thoughts in the comment section below.

Next a crow warned his brothers of the danger of my approach.  Fearsome me.  I could not find him, but the raucous call was familiar enough.  Why I alarmed them I am not sure, except that they are ever vigilant.

By this point, my fingers were cold to the point of hurting, so I headed back to the car.  Driving up river a ways, I quickly tried another location.  From out of the blue came a dazzling sight - a kingfisher, jewel of the morning!  He flashed across my field of view, paused for a split second on a branch, and zipped away, beyond recall.  I waited and watched, in hopes of his return, but that was not to be.  The day I can photograph one of those will be a red-letter day indeed.

Walking along the river, I kept my eyes open for more wildlife.  Some thin bird tracks in the snow left me wondering what species had left them.  It was something smaller than a crow, but bigger than a sparrow or cardinal.  I had to leave that mystery behind me.

As my remaining minutes melted away, my attention was caught by a couple of birds darting about in the trees on the edge of a field.  Approaching closer, I tried to distinguish their form and features - then caught a little flash of red.  Woodpeckers.  "Pretties!" I exclaimed.  They flitted about quickly, in a tangle of branches, more interested in each other than in me.

Then it was time to go.  As I drove to work, I passed a few mourning doves on the telephone wires.  I wished I could stop to capture them with my camera.  And as I left my parked car and went in to work, the cheery calls of a black-capped chickadee reminded me that spring is coming, and before too long I will be wandering the fields in the oven heat of summer.

Drake & Hen

Drake and hen out at Smith's Island...

On water:

In air:

Canvasbacks

There were hundreds of canvasbacks on the river near LeClaire, Iowa last weekend.  I stopped to get a few pictures, and was excited to see them in such numbers.

They are so distinctive, with their whitish backs and bodies, and red heads.

Here's a picture of one with a Canada goose, for size comparison.

Another Merganser

After researching the hooded merganser I posted about yesterday, I got interested in this little enclave of waterfowl all over again.  I remembered photographing another merganser last year, and so looked up those photos.  Here is a female from last spring

The only problem was that I wasn't sure if this was a common or a red-breasted merganser.  The hens are difficult to tell apart, and my pictures were distant and murky.

In my quest to find out, I ended up at allaboutbirds.com, at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  I end up there a lot.  They give succinct, reliable information and have nice color photos.  Here's a link to their excellent website:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Merganser/id

I learned that the common merganser hen has a white chin patch, while the red-breasted hen does not.  Instead, she has a dark or pale chin.  Also, the common merganser has a short crest, but the red-breasted has a longer, double crest.  That's it.  Those are the two big differences.

Based on that information, I looked over my photos again.  The crest on my bird is hard to see,  but the lack of a white chin spot leads me to believe that what we have here is a female red-breasted merganser.

Hooded Merganser

My first hooded merganser!

I was on the river photographing bald eagles when this fellow flew in and landed on the water.  He was there for a few seconds, and then, taking in the number of voracious photographers lining the boardwalk, he took off again for calmer waters.  But what a looker!  I was almost more excited about him than the eagles.

I'm not an expert on ducks, so at first I thought it was a bufflehead.  They have big white wedges on their heads, and that's what popped into my mind.  Then I heard the other photographers talking about it, and they said it was a merganser.  I came home and checked out my field guides, and of course they were right.

There are three basic types of mergansers:  the common merganser, the red-breasted merganser, and the hooded merganser.  The hooded is the smallest of the three, and the males have the white, fan-shaped patch on their head.  They begin pairing up in early winter, so he may have been on the lookout for some lady mergansers.

The name merganser, from Latin, indicates a duck-like, diving water bird.