I wonder how many times I have seen the description of ducks "exploding" out of the water. It is a fitting way to describe a Wood Duck taking off from a body of water. They may show some extra vigilance or seem a bit nervous, but when they take off they are like a bullet. Since Wood Ducks hook up in the fall or early winter, it has been quiet for the most part. I even suspect that the females are on eggs already. Wood Ducks have two broods and I came upon this evidence while kayaking here on Skaneateles Lake in late summer seeing a female woodie with her eight young babies. it still surprises me to see these ducks in a habitat that seems unexpected.
Male Wood Duck in Mating Behavior
Not quite a peck on the cheek this is a prelude to the mating event. I'm always saying that I don't want to come back as a female duck.lol
Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
Our vacation this spring was an ambitious one that started in the mountains of Virginia and Tennessee ending with a thirteen and a half hour drive to arrive in Chincoteague. We went from temperatures in the nineties to the sixties and seventies which were more to my liking. One day fog rolled in from the ocean covering the beach in a veil of white so dense that my hair was dripping with water. Perhaps a better photograph could have included a person or a bird, but this is what was and the empty vastness of it lacking a true horizon was what attracted me to sit with my camera at the end of a day. It was like an exhale so expansive that I became paralyzed to leave.
Winter continues its intrusion into spring's space, but the birds and the critters are tied to a different clock of light and hormones. Everything is getting busy and down to business as the need to breed keeps spring marching forward despite what we see looking out our windows. Spring wildflowers that should be pushing up from their winter slumber are a bit behind, but once we have some warm sunshine they will quickly catch up to make a short appearance before summer causes them to fade. I used to think that the birds that arrived early were not as smart or lucky. Now I have learned that they are the risk takers with an urgency to arrive first to establish their territories. Knowing this now, when I see them braving the snow and crowding the feeders I feel a bit of respect for their being first.
