duck

Tag

By Bubblegum Feet

Spring has Sprung! A small flock of Buffelhead ducks landed at the lake to take a break before lifting off and heading north on their spring migration. I will miss seeing their bubble gum feet!

By Mallard???

Mallard??? Nope, not quite! This is a hybrid mallard. I sent the first 2 photos over to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences on their Ask a Naturalist site and asked did they have any ideas what the parentage was. They said they felt that it was mallard x muscovy duck x Graylag goose. Mallards often cross breed with other duck and goose species. My goodness what a mixture. However, quite a gorgeous bird to see. Third photo is a normal mallard so you can see the difference.

By Last Day of November, 2022

Jordan Lake. Well, it is the last day of November and a windy soggy day at that. So, I thought I would try to brighten up our world a little bit. Here is a flight of bufflehead ducks that Captain Doug and I found, bright in the sunshine of yesterday afternoon, to lighten the mood of this mid-week day.

bufflehead ducks

By new Life List bird for doc ellen – Long-tailed Duck, 3 photos
I wasn’t at all sure what kind of duck came in for a landing at Jordan Lake.
Got home and started investigating.
WooWee. I had photographed a female long-tailed duck.
It is rarely seen at Jordan Lake – it is a migratory bird that stays mostly on our coastline in the winter.
I am sorry the pictures are not the best: I hope to see the bird again and get a better shot to share.
BTW a great identification source is the bird app “Merlin” at the Cornell Ornithology site.   http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org

By Jordan Lake Neighborhood, 7 photos, 03/09/2017

Petruchio returning to the First Nest after pushing an osprey back to the east side of the cove.

A beaver on an early morning swim back towards his dam.

This mallard drake was traveling so fast with his hen, that I missed getting her in the photo.

A ring-billed gull with a mouthful of fish fresh caught on the surface of the lake.

Wood duck drake starting to glow with his breeding colors.

In the winter you can find two varieties of kinglets at the lake.

This is a golden-crowned kinglet pouting at me.

Here is the other kinglet.  A ruby-crowned kinglet popping his ruby-crown at me when I startled him.