Better than Saturday morning Cartoons

The beaver swamp was filled with action this morning.  First thing that caught my attention were the Wood Ducks.  We've had a few days that have been above freezing recently, so there is some water again.

We saw the first pair of Wood Ducks on March 27th.  This is a photo from this morning, of a drake on the left and a hen on the right. 

This morning, I counted nine wood ducks all together!  First though, the group I was watching across from our house had 5 drakes and one hen!  Not a good ratio.  As you could imagine, there was some action between the drakes, as you can see in the next two short videos.  

There are Red-winged Blackbirds singing, and Canada geese honking in the background of this one:

 

In the next one, Red-winged Blackbirds are calling "Oka-lee" and there is a Song Sparrow singing, and one of the Wood Ducks chases another:

Now that you've heard some of the other birds of the swamp, here's one with the Wood Ducks calling:

The Wood Ducks all swam toward the other end of the swamp, and a short time later, back they came.  This time, there were 3 pairs of drakes and hens, and only one lone male.  Phew!  That's a better ratio!

My attention was so focused on the Wood Ducks, that until I saw it in one of my videos, I did not notice another little duck.  I went back out and watched for it again, and luckily, this Green-winged Teal was still there.

That's not a great photo, but it's the best one I got, and is good enough to identify it by its' white band on the side and rump patch, plus its' dark rufous head with the green eye band.  It doesn't show up as green in the photo, but in my new binoculars, it was quite clear and pretty! (Thanks, F)

Just as I didn't notice the teal right away while I was watching the flamboyant Wood Ducks, these other ducks were kind of hard to see:

There are two ducks in that photo.  The one on the right is pretty easy to see, but the one to the left has its' head under the water.  Here's a slightly better shot:

And, now you can see him!

How about those orange legs and greenish-yellow bill!  Looks like a pair of American Black Ducks, which would be a first-time sighting on our swamp.

Another thing I got rather excited about this morning was this:

 A Great-Blue Heron sat atop the 'nest tree' where we had a pair of herons raise a family during the summer of 2012.  If you didn't read about it before, here's a link to my blog post about that.  I didn't go too close, because I didn't want to scare it away.  It stayed there for maybe 10 minutes, meanwhile a goose strolled along below the heron tree.  I hope the herons don't mind noisy neighbors.  I would love to have another "heron summer".

If you look closely, you can see the heron nest in the tree right behind the goose, and the heron sitting on top.  In case you have trouble picking them out, here they are:

I'm sure you can see the silly goose!