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While in Saint John last week, a visit to Falls View Park, at the mouth of the Saint John river gave me an opportunity to photograph these beautiful 
male Common Mergansers. There were no females within this group. To the right is the view from Falls View Park where I saw these Common Mergansers.
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Travelling further up the river we stopped at Westfield to take a picture of the car ferry there and saw, downriver in the open water; Ring-necks and Black Ducks and also a few Common Goldeneye. These ducks were.jpg)
at too far a distance to get their pictures but further up the river we saw a larger group of Common Goldeneye. There were also some females among .jpg)
this group. The female common Goldeneye is the one with the brown head and the male is the one with the prominent white circle between its eye and bill. .jpg)
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And yet another surprise awaited me when I downloaded my pictures for I found that amongst the Goldeneye there was a Scaup! This had turned out to be a rather nice day for seeing ducks. We had seen 6 species in all: Common Mergansers, Ring-necked Ducks, Black Ducks, Common Goldeneye, one Scaup and earlier in the day we had seen Mallards at Lily Lake.
That was certainly a nice variety to see all in one day! Lovely! I feel like I can smell the water and feel the breeze. I like the bright red bills on the Mergansers. Do you think all those males were out "cruising" looking for mates? I can see I will learn about ducks from your blog! The white circle on the Goldeneye is certainly distinctive.
ReplyDeleteMary:
ReplyDeleteYou're right; I hopefully will be making a lot of posts about ducks. When the Saint John River opens up there will be many different species to be found along it. Not all species stay, but many do stop over and feed along their way further north; and I plan on being there to capture pictures of a few of them when they do.
The red bill and green heads of the mergansers remind me of Christmas colours.
What a great day you had! Beautiful birds and so many of them! The coastline is gorgeous there.
ReplyDeleteSandpiper:
ReplyDeleteI often don't think to include the landscape if I am focusing on the close-up of a bird. I shall have to remember to do that more often. The coastline does offer some beautiful scenery in this area.
Well, it doesn't look like your weather is too bad. Looked like a nice day when you took photos of the birds. We got up to 76 degrees today. When I went for my walk in the park, there were quite a few people there. Keep the photos coming.
ReplyDeletekayway:
ReplyDeleteThe coastal areas lose their snow much faster than do the still white, inland areas. The temperature sounds great in your area though! Thanks for dropping by.