Last Saturday was a spectacular bird day at Bear Island Wildlife Management Area and these Blue-winged Teals were one of the many groups of birds I saw. The water had been lowered in some of the back ponds which attracts the wading birds, shore birds and migrating ducks.
The reeds at the edge of the canals are above my head in most places so I did not have a clear view of the teals until they took off.
This is the first Whistling Duck I have seen in South Carolina. He was perched high in a tree over a pond and I couldn’t even tell what it was until I zoomed in on the image in my camera.
The duck periodically threw his head back and made a very un-duck like sounding call.
A pair of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks flew by, but didn’t slow down to listen to the one in the tree and he didn’t make any effort to join them.
There was still about a half hour until sunset, but the sun, which was behind me, was disappearing into a cloud bank, taking the light and any possibility of a colorful sunset with it.
A group of nine Wood Ducks were hanging out on an Alligator Ramp, preening and enjoying the late afternoon sun late last week.
Nothing in particular seemed to have startled them, but by twos and threes they flew off.
As the ducks shifted around some flashes of blue were evident. Some of the adult males have lost their full breeding colors and the juvenile males are starting to show some color.
One juvenile was left by herself, pacing up and down. She finally decided joining the pack was the right thing to do.
A mother Wood Duck usually stays with her ducklings until they are grown to near adult size, the “teen age” stage. The males are sometimes around but don’t seem to supervise the young the way I’ve seen the females herd their charges around.
No adult was in sight for these three ducklings and I suspect the mother became lunch for a predator. The survival rate for the ducklings is low and the adults can fall victim to alligators, hawks, or eagles. These three were sticking together, swimming around the pond to various perches. As plant eaters these ducklings don’t rely on the parent bringing food, they just eat what is around them.
This board they are settled on is an Alligator ramp that has been slowly sinking into the pond over the last year.
The surface of the pond is covered with a mixture of green Duck Weed and some variation of Mosquito Fern, the red plant. Zoom in on the closer image of the dragonfly perched on the surface to see the plants in more detail.
The oldest Wood Duck chicks on the pond right now are almost indistinguishable from their mothers.
This old alligator platform gets smaller every week, either sinking or rotting into the pond. This small family squeezes together on it to groom and soak up the afternoon sun.
From the end of the pond you get a view of the platform with the sun glaring off the duckweed. In silhouette you can see mother duck standing a little taller and with more head feathers than her four youngsters. She had turned just a bit to see which way I was headed.
Perched on a log a group of male Wood Ducks were just hanging around, doing some stretching.
At least three were lined up on this log and a few more were in the water behind this clump of trees.
Time for a swim, one by one they took to the water.
There is an open pond at the edge of the cypress swamp and this fellow was going off on his own.
Undecided, this Wood Duck drake paced on top of the nesting box. Were there hatchlings inside about to pop out? Was he waiting for a mate? Questions I never got the answers to.
Eventually he took a plunge off the side.
Splash down!
A short paddle took him back to the box. He spent some time contemplating his next move under the protection of some overhanging branches.
Mama Wood Duck and her brood posed for a family portrait on one of the new alligator ramps installed around the rice field. I counted fourteen chicks while they were sitting still, but some were snoozing with their heads down so there may have been more. All About Birds says their clutch can have up to sixteen eggs.
A Common Gallinule was doing his best to photo bomb the portrait, paddling along behind them. I waited, hoping he would move along.
He did, but Mama felt it was time to move on, too, and they all bailed off in one fluid motion off the side of the ramp away from me.
This pair of Northern Shovelers was sticking together as they worked the pond in the early morning light. They were one of only a few water birds in the area that was patrolled by at least two pairs of Bald Eagles making them easy targets.
Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Florida, 2/21/2018.
Well, what else do they have to do? When they aren’t eating ducks often swim around, and perhaps the female was testing to see if the male would follow. He did.
This Wood Duck pair went back and forth in front of me several times, never quite making it into the sun patch closer to me before they disappeared with the Teals around the corner.
