Totally captivated in 2007 by the live camera feed of the Hornby Island nesting Bald Eagles in B.C., I was drawn into birding and have never looked back. Thus begins my account of what I'm fortunate enough to discover each day and perhaps capture with my camera.



Unless otherwise stated, all images were taken by and are the property of Janice Melendez

Species Counts:

2014 Final Year List: 255; 2015 Year List a/o June 5, 2015: 235; Life List: 327

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Winter Waterfowl and other Goodies


On Monday Ann and I headed off to the shores of Lake Ontario to see any wintering waterfowl before they set sail for the season. We began our day with a local Red-tailed Hawk at sunrise:










From there, we visited Ashbridge's Bay, Port Credit, and Humber Bay Park East to see some of my winter favorites, beginning with Long-tailed Ducks:











This male preened himself in the warmth of the morning sunshine:




The female Long-tail's are quite lovely, too, in their own way:














Lesser Scaup were seen as well, a male...






...and a female, with a male Long-tailed Duck:






Ann kept up her strength and taunted the local police by multi-tasking behind the wheel as she chows down on one of my lo-cal "dental squares" BUSTED, Annie!!:







This Mute Swan did the best interpretation ever of a pretzel, with its head and neck pulled tightly back, with a finishing touch of  the wings framing the whole package, the girls went wild!







Male Buffleheads strutted their best stuff for the females... 














...but some of the females were not so easily impressed! I'm always intrigued by how different females are from males in so many species:







On the other hand, American Wigeons are returning, although this is not my first for the year. Here's the male...





...and the female:






So ended another successful day as Ann and I enjoyed probably some of our final views of these beauties for another year.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ummmmmmm, only one thing to say about the comment about females being different from males in so many species? Try ALL species. It's a Venus and Mars thing in the bird world too, then!