Wood Ducks: The worst weather brings the best ducks

They're here! It's that time of year again when Chris will get nothing done at home because of these fancy ducks that come by. This morning, Chris decided she better get the binoculars to be sure those weren't just mallards. It was a group of five females and one male wood duck.

Hawk

We're not certain what type of hawk this is. It may be a Cooper's hawk, since we read they have a grey head and wings. But many Cooper's hawk pictures are mostly brown. If this is a Cooper's hawk, I'm not sure what hawk we photographed last week. Our best guess is that this one is mature and the other a juvenile.

Female Ruddy Duck

What's half the size of a mallard and really cute? A ruddy duck. What a sweet little surprise she was to us since we had not seen one of these last fall after we moved in. We had been out on the boat in the afternoon and went down under the bridge. We saw the usual suspects, egret and kingfisher, geese and mallards, but no "special" ducks. When we got back home, we decided we deserved a dip in the Jacuzzi, and that's when we spotted her. We were back to our crazy antics of scurrying about while dripping wet to locate the necessary equipment; binoculars and camera. If it's getting to be "fancy" duck season, we'll have to take our daughter's original advice and keep everything charged up and right by the door.

Different Day, Same Egret