So, this morning I'm walking the dog around the block before having to dash off to work early, when I see what I swear is a duck sitting in a yard, and then fly up to a tree.
Now, if I was back in the 'dacks, a duck in a tree wouldn't be any cause for pause, because we have both wood ducks and mergansers in fair number there, and both are cavity nesters, which means they will fly to and perch in trees. But here in a CITY, it made me do a double take.
Admittedly, I do live only a couple hundred feet from a small lake, which is nearly completely surrounded by development. This is what threw me for a loop - wood ducks in a city?
As I drew closer, the wood duck resolved into...FOUR wood ducks, who all took off as we the dog and I approached. Their characteristic call as they flew away was a dead give-away that they were indeed wood ducks.
It just goes to show that you never know what you will encounter.
And here's the icing on the cake: a pair of loons has been spotted on the lake, too! I thought I saw them last week, but I told myself no - that was wishful thinking. What would loons be doing on a small, developed urban lake? Four days later they were posted on the internet! I will have to start trusting my eyes.
That is amazing! We live on a dairy farm far south of the Dacks, but I have seen a pair of loons flying up here from a pond that should have been too small for them to even get out of..it was cool.
ReplyDeleteYou just never know! I saw a turkey hen on top of the Hotel Syracuse earlier this week, from my 14th floor office window. A turkey? On the roof of an urban building, nearly 200 feet in the air? She was just strolling casually around amongst the gargoyles. I didn't even know turkeys could fly that high! I mean, it was a windy day, but it wasn't THAT windy.
ReplyDeleteI shall forever be baffled by that one, and equally irked that I didn't have a camera with me at the time.