Odd Ducks at Farm Pond

I went to Farm Pond this morning to spend an hour walking there before work.  This can be a very buggy location in the spring, and the bugs were back this morning, although not terrible.

I saw the Wood Ducks again, in the same area, and again they spooked out to the center of the pond, turning their heads to survey the danger approaching them.  They sure are pretty.

It seemed like there were woodpeckers drumming along every portion of the trail, all Downy Woodpeckers.  I saw at least 7.

Red-Winged Blackbird

Not all the Mute Swans were up for the day yet.

Mute Swan
(in the swan boat shape position!)

The trail follows the edge of the water, all the way past that pumping station and on through the woods to the right.  It is not quite as pretty as it looks in this photo, because there is a lot of litter.  This place is in serious need of some trash pickup, but you'd often have to be able to get into the water to reach it.

 Red-Winged Blackbird
He was pulling at the fluff on the cattail.

 Eastern Phoebe

Looking back on the trail I had just taken

Song Sparrow

And the odd ducks mentioned in the title of my post?  They were common birds, mallards.   I didn't get a photo because I wasn't close enough, but the two drake mallards below appeared to be mating.   I was surprised, but after investigating a bit on line, there are statistics to support that approximately 10 to 19% of the mallard population do participate in male-male sexual activity.  You really do learn something new every day!

At lunchtime, I walked at Waseeka Wildlife Sanctuary.  It was pretty quiet except for quacking wood frogs.  Two ospreys were there today, one sitting on the nest.  The other was flying near the edge of the water but soon came in to join the first, and both sat in the nest together.  The only other birds I saw were Black-Capped Chickadees, a Mallard, a Grackle, and White-Breasted Nuthatches.

Ospreys