Just Ducky

 

Today I worked on campus and walked alone, since my colleague is on vacation this week. My phone had said it would be 44 degrees F out, and it was wet early in the day, but when it dried off, it got really cold. In the evening Travalon and I went swimming in the warm pool. Ahh!

As promised, here are photos from yesterday, but first, look who came to visit Travalon's work last week!

A giant duck - it's Maynard the Mallard! And here are some more waterfowl. First we have some green-winged teals (and Canada geese).

Next, some buffleheads. The male is the one with more white on him.

Here are a whole bunch of mallards.

And these are northern shovelers.

I'm not sure what swimming stroke this male bufflehead is trying to do...

Here two male buffleheads are busy preening.

I was concerned about this little female bufflehead. She was all by herself, which is strange for such a social breed of duck. I wonder if her mate died and she is in mourning?

We also saw lots of sandhill cranes fly overhead, usually in pairs but sometimes in larger groups of up to six. Apparently Travalon didn't get any photos of them, but there are plenty of photos of our neighborhood cranes on this blog already. Check out some of the posts from May in previous years going back to 2020, because that's when there are cute baby crane photos.

Famous Hat