Pratyaydipta Rudra is back with part 2 of his duck photo series (part 1 is here), which of course features DUCKS. Pratyay’s IDs and comments are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them:

Here is the second part of the series of photos that I took while spending time with a group of breeding Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa).

A couple of males doing their things:

A duckling floating by:

Mother showing kiddo how to search for food on/under the floating logs:

The duckling tries some on its ownL

A few more ducklings join in:

Like mother like baby. Part 1: The sweet call!:

 Like mother like baby. Part 2: The wing flaps!:

A couple of ducklings resting on the rock:

There were four in total. I think at this time they were aware of me taking photos and got slightly alert:

Duckling swimming in…

 Checking the “mirror”? Not an ugly duckling for sure:

Father was close by floating on the reflective water of the pond:

We have a couple of batches of photos, and today’s come from Pratyaydipa Rudra, a statistician at Oklahoma State, who has sent DUCKS. Pratyay’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

The duck stories from the Botany pond made me look back at some photos that I took while spending time with a group of breeding Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa). These birds obviously gorgeous (the scientific name meaning “water bird in bridal dress”), but they also show some interesting behavior. Below are some of my photos of these cool birds.

One common theme in several of these pictures is the fall color reflection in the pond. The colorful ducks against the reflection of red or golden leaves make for a nice frame. In case you are wondering, this is an adult male:

A closer look at all the iridescences:

The female might not be as eye-catching, but I find female Wood Ducks are quite elegant, especially with the bronze-colored sheen:

Another female floating around. It wasn’t easy to get to the water level at this pond; so, the background is not as clean as I would like it to be:

A male flapping the wings to shake off some water:

Two of them feeding on the ground. It is not uncommon to see them walking around. In fact, they spend significant time on trees and nest in tree cavities (or nest boxes, when available):

Female stretching the tail feathers while resting a rock next to the pond:

Some more preening and grooming…:

Mrs. Woody’s turn to show the wing-flapping skills:

Floating a pond of gold…:

His mate was nearby:

Wood Ducks show sweet mating rituals and tender love:

Some kissing, and seems like the female is ready for it!:

Of course, that leads to some ducklings! Look at those feet!:

Immature Wood Duck floating on the pond:

I will share some more photos of this family in the next edition.

This is it for photo contributions (save for singletons), so please send in your good wildlife photos. Many thanks!

Today’s photos feature DUCKS, and come from reader Jan Malik. (There are other bird’s too.) Jan’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here are a few common birds from Cape May (the peninsula where the namesake town is located) taken last week. The area with marshes, sand dunes and freshwater ponds at the southern tip of the peninsula next to the lighthouse is called The Meadows. Spring migration has just started but animal traffic was rather light.

Mallard drake (Anas platyrhynchos) viewed from a blind. Hens stayed farther away, in reeds thicket:

A bromance? In the past I have observed and photographed mallard drakes courting one another, so this would be nothing unusual:

No, this is just one male running off a competitor from the pond:

Gadwall (Mareca strepera), hen and drake. This is a cosmopolitan duck species, widespread in Eurasia’s and America’s temperate zone. “Strepera” in Latin presumably means “noisy”, but these remained quiet; I suppose a drake can be quite vocal when courting:

The Gadwall drake is less flamboyant than males of other dabbling ducks, but they are patterned with fine gray and brown streaks in breast feathers and black rump patches. That, plus overall neat and symmetrical plumage, speculum visible when flying and vigorous behavior when courting, is perfectly sufficient for a hen to select a mate. I think this humble plumage evolved due to drakes’ staying longer near the nest than many dabbling ducks. For some time – until incubation starts – they do guard it. Thus there must be some pressure to evolve inconspicuous coloration:

Gadwall hens are difficult to tell apart from mallards. All I can spot is the lack of a dark band across the eye and a dark bill, unlike yellow in mallard:

An American species, a blue-winged teal (Spatula discors) male. Contrary to the name, not much blue shows on this drake – blue feathers are mostly revealed in flight:

Blue winged teal, hen. Dark bill and light coloration just behind the bill allow us to tell it is not a mallard, but from a distance these signs are easy to miss:

The teal swam a little too close past the mated gadwalls and the drake let the teal know, not very aggressively but unambiguously, that he was trespassing:

A red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) was announcing the extent of his territory by his “cankaree” call. There were many males in the marsh but I didn’t see any females – they might not have arrived yet, and even if they did, they prefer to stay out of sight. Males are highly territorial and fiercely defend their territories. Later in the season it is not unusual for a male redwing to attack a human passerby if a nest happens to be too close to a path. I’ve also seen redwings ride a hawk or an eagle, like a cowboy on a bull:

A flock of Snowy Egrets (Egretta thula) descending on a coastal march at sunrise. They are gregarious compared to the Great Egret, can feed together as a group form dense nesting colonies: