Ernie (Not Bert)

Trolling though all the photos I took last month but never shared, I'm into the ones from Circle B Bar Preserve in Lakeland, Florida. More birds up there than you can shake a stick at, but I gave it the old college try. These ducks were standing in formation on a dead tree for some reason. You never can really tell what's going through a ducks mind. But I thought it made a neat picture.

Here. Don't say I never gave you a picture of a hooded merganser. At least I think that's what this was. I spotted a couple of them in the retention pond of a movie theater near my condo, so I whipped out the camera and took a couple of shots. The light was fading fast, and the puffy-headed ducks were paddling fast to get away from me and my camera. I got off a few shots and this was the best one. There are so many different types of ducks out there, I can't even pretend to be able to identify them all. If anyone out there can tell me if I'm correct in my identification, I'd appreciate it.

Ha-Ha! Ducks are funny when they're feeding. Do you think they know how silly they look? I doubt it. This guy was eating in the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall. I guess ducks have no respect.

I spotted this crazy looking duck at Lake Morton in Lakeland, FL, over the weekend. I'd seen them before, but never gotten any decent pictures. I think these are pretty good, except for the fence he's sitting on, but you can't have everything. Check out that green helmet of feathers on the top of his head, and my book refers to those white lines on his face as dual chinstraps. I guess they're there to hold the helmet in place when he flies. And fly he did when I got within 20 feet of him. Out into the water he went, where I guess he felt safer.

Once out in the water, he started making his weird, squeaky quack. And he'd extend his neck each time, like he was making the noise through some sort of stretching. Compare the length of his neck above and below, and you'll see how it changes. The book called this Florida's most colorful duck, and I'll have to agree with them. This puts my poor blue-winged guys to shame.

Here's a whole flotilla of Easter happiness for you. Hope you had a good one!

I believe these are the same species of duck I showed you last week (or was it earlier this week), with the blue colors under the wings. Only on these guys, you can see a little bit of the blue as they are standing there at the waters edge. I remember thinking the blue was much clearer when I was taking the picture, but it doesn't show up too well.

As I mentioned yesterday, I don't normally pay too much attention to ducks. But these guys were too obnoxious to ignore. They circled around the Venice Rookery a dozen times before finally settling down. And then as soon as anyone disturbed them in even the slightest way, they'd take off and circle another dozen times. At least it allowed me to get a few good pictures of them in flight.






And this is what they look like on the ground. Mere seconds after this shot, they took to the air again and circled for another 20 minutes. And did I mention they didn't circle silently? No, of course not, they quacked their little duck hearts out the whole time.  Anybody want to tell me what sort of ducks these are?  Here in Florida, we're on the migration paths for so many different birds, it takes an ornithologist to keep them all straight.

I was shooting the birds down at the Venice Rookery Saturday. (I've got dozens and dozens of pictures from there that I want to share with you, but I've got to start somewhere.) I saw a couple of ducks down at one end of the pond, so I took a couple of shots. The pictures with both ducks in one frame aren't too good, but here's a shot of one of them to give you an idea. According to my book, this is a Mottled Duck.

Then for some reason they flew off, and I almost couldn't believe my eyes. Look at that blue on the wings!

I almost couldn't believe it. Such a plain looking duck has those blue feathers hidden away.

I suppose I'm going to have to start paying more attention to ducks now. I usually don't pay them any mind.