So Many Ducks at Patrick Marsh!

 

Today Anna Banana II and Jilly Moose came to Mass and brunch with the usual gang, and then they accompanied Travalon and me to Patrick Marsh. It was such an excellent birdwatching day! It's hard to believe we saw so many species of birds. Travalon got pictures of a lot of them. The first thing we saw was what we thought might be a loon, but it flew away before Travalon could get a photo of it. He did get some good photos of it flying away. I think it was probably a red-breasted merganser. 

Here he is! He's a beautiful creature but hard to photograph because he keeps diving underwater.

And here he is with his lady love.

This is a pretty good photograph of what I believe are two male common mergansers swimming away from us.

And here is a mallard swimming toward us.

We saw a pelican flying around.

And lots of these little swallows.

And of course lots of herring gulls.

We also saw Bonaparte's gulls, which are smaller with a black head, but Travalon didn't get any photos of them. We saw these birds, which may be horned grebes or eared grebes. 

Then we hiked the paths that go into the woods, which got muddy, and we did end up with wet feet. We passed the little pond always covered with green scum, where we saw two Canada geese.

And blue-winged teals with either a black duck or a female mallard. I can't really tell them apart.

Travalon caught the Canada geese both engaged in a balancing act.

And this isn't a bird, but we saw this scary-looking "Halloween tree" with all these weird bunches of branches that might be just how it grows, or maybe they're nests. We couldn't tell.

Back by the lake, we saw a blue heron fly by! Here he is coming in for the landing.

The photo of him standing in the water is out of focus, but then he took off again, and Travalon got this amazing photo of him flying away.

And here is the back of a male common merganser. 

Then we went to the other side of the lake and hiked down to the water. From there we could see lots of birds, including several female common mergansers, but it doesn't look like Travalon got any photos of them. Here is a pair of mallards.

I just found out today that these funny little ducks are called ruddy ducks. Makes sense, because they are a ruddy color, except for their black heads, white cheeks, and awesome blue bills. Notice how their tails stick up.

This isn't the clearest photo, but I love how this ruddy duck is making a splash!

And this is a pretty good shot of a male common merganser.

When we came home, we prayed a Divine Mercy chaplet with the ladies for Divine Mercy Sunday, then I got on my family Zoom call, and then I did my Irish class. I made them all laugh, because we were supposed to describe a drawing, and I said, "They are running, but I don't know why because I don't see a bear." (I'd write it for you in Irish, but spellcheck keeps changing all the words.) Afterwards Travalon and I went down to the dock, and we saw the pair of wood ducks that have been hanging around (we also saw some at Patrick Marsh), but he didn't have his camera, so no photos of them. Sorry! 

Famous Hat