Wood duck pairs

Last week I saw a couple of wood duck pairs. This was lovely as up until then I saw very few Wood ducks.  Now that I know they are around, unfortunately we have been experiencing flooding and I have been unable to return to the location where I had sighted them.Hopefully when the flooding is over and the water has gone down I will be able to find them again.  Have a nice dry day everyone!

Take off sequence of a male Common Merganser

While watching a male common Merganser in the river in front of me I was fortunate to be able to capture this sequence of its take off action.

Pair of Black Ducks

I think the most beautiful part of his pair of black ducks is the Blue Patch on the side of the female Duck.,  It is her beauty spot in my opinion.

skunk for Saturday Critters

We don't often see a skunk walking across the road, as its often an unfortunate case of it having been hit by a vehicle in its crossing.  When we saw a live skunk yesterday we decided to turn back and try to capture its picture. We didn't have many pose choices as it was hurrying to the other side and when it got to the other side and disappeared in the ditch vegetation, we didn't get out to search for it, because  you know it was a skunk! and you know what their reaction reputation is! and although we enjoyed seeing one, we didn't want to encounter one.

am linking today with Eileen at 

I viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.ca

Eastern Phoebe

Yesterday while out driving I approached a small highway bridge where I often see an Eastern Phoebe and it wasn't on the bridge sidings.  To early I told myself but I stopped midway on the bridge and rolled my car window down and much to my delight!

I saw a small bird fly into a group of small bushes midstream there and it was an animated Eastern Phoebe making many Phoebe sounds.Srpring is so wonderful; with its loyalty to time and place!

Hybrid Duck

I had thought that I had taken a good picture of a black, but after downloading the pure i wasn't  so sure about that.  The neck of the duck appeared to be green, was it a maybe Mallard?... No there was black on the duck's head.. Then I thought , maybe some sort of hybrid and after checking in my bird guidebook I found that it was Black duck, Mallard Hybrid.

Black Ducks

I have been looking for Black Ducks for days recently.  Last spring the first duck species I had found were Black Ducks.  Each spring I look for Ducks in two different sort of location.  First I find Mergansers and Common Goldeneye in the rivers and ponds and secondly, the nature of spring usually being that of melting ice ands rain showers, I often find ducks in field ponds; water pooled together in fields to create a pond like appearance.  But this spring has been so cold that I have found very few field ponds as the temperatures have been so cold.  Yesterday I found Black Ducks and Mallards in a few small field ponds.  Hopefully the temperatures will warm up soon and I shall find more dabbling ducks.

Above 5 Black Ducks in a small field Pond; then they got frightened off by the noise of passing traffic.

In the background was a lovely red barn

Tomorrow we are expecting freezing rain and ice pellets so I don't expect many more field ponds to be developing soon.

Wild turkey for Saturday Critters

Yesterday morning I was slowly cruising along in my village when I noticed a large bird walking alongside my cat.  I rolled

down my car window and there to my delight beside my car was a wild turkey walking along.. Its body reminded me of armour, It was a very striking looking bird.

I am linking today to Irene's Satturday Critters which can be found at viewingnature witheileen.blogspot.ca

A Pretty Merganser

We know that in the bird wold most often the most attractive gender of the species is the male.  But this week I found a female common Merganser that looked quite feminine to me and she looked sweet, almost pretty even.  She had such a gentle, pleasant appearance  I can't get over the surprise of seeing such aa sweet looking female duck,

Found a Killdeer

Its always interesting when finding a surprise when downloading pictures. Yesterday I had been taking pictures of groups of Canada Geese.  Upon downloading the pictures when back home I saw a smaller sized bird in the foreground of some Canadas in a picture!

After finding the small bird I decided to crop it out to study it closer and shown below is what I got. I believe it is a Killdeer!

A Turkey Vulture for Camera Critters

It isn't often that I have an opportunity to view a Turkey Vulture up close, however on Thursday of this week while driving along the highway I saw a large bird land in a driveway.  Being very curious as to what it was I shed the traffic behind me and turned and went back to look at the bird.  The large bird was still there and with my 300mm zoom lens I could see the red head and face.  I knew it was a Turkey Vulture. 

I had never had such a close-up view like that before.I am linking today to Eileen's Saturday's Critters

!which can be found at viewingnaturewitheileen.blogspot.ca

Beaver

It isn't often that I see a Beaver swimming in the water, but luckily I did yesterday!  I wasn't sure at first of it was a Beaver or a Muskrat, but I was hoping that the photos would show a portion of the tail and they did.  The wide paddle shaped tail told me that it was a beaver swimming there in the rive below me as I was standing on the bridge over the river!

Song Sparrow in Bird Alley

Yesterday I was delighted to see a Song Sparrow in Bird Alley!

This was a first for 2018.  Also we had a Junco visiting and a white- breasted Nuthatch, A little male Downey Woodpecker along with Goldfinch and many Chickadees. And a big surprise was a little Chipmunk feeding under the bird feeders! And we saw hundreds of Canada geese yesterday in the Keswick area.