This wood duck surprised me last week as we walked to the far bog where the beavers reside. As we approached the bog, the ducks paddling around the open water section near us sped away into the central part of the bog. This usually meant we missed any chance of getting a picture of them.
I tied off Murphy to improve any chances of wildlife photography (he is getting used to this and generally doesn’t complain).
I stood halfway down the trail for about twenty minutes. I got pictures of robins and nuthatches (see right; this is probably a robin but it looks a bit ragged and makes me wonder about my ID).
All of a sudden, this wood duck comes in for an abrupt landing onto the water in front of me. He then slowly swims away from me without much panic.
Just in time, the rain has come to end the drought (mostly).
In a previous post you saw a male hooded merganser. Here is the pair we found in the no-name pond. These ducks tend to breed across all of New England and into Canada on the east coast. They reportedly winter in southern New England and points south. This leaves the question, are they going to depart for the south soon or is Maine now a reasonable wintering ground?