Wednesday Walk - Pond is Alive With Duck Families and Ducklings..
The rains have come again which had me changing my direction
of my walk to visiting the pond down the road instead of climbing up the hill.
I'm glad I did for I found the Bufflehead duck family with their mature ducklings plus a couple of other duck families I hadn't seen before.
Pond Along Our Road
Out on the water there was the Bufflehead duck family (who I had been watching grow and posting about) grouped together with what I found out to be the blue-winged teal duck family. All the ducklings in these families were quite mature and they now had some strength in their wings looking like they would be ready to fly soon.
Family of Bufflehead Ducks and Teal Ducks With Mature Ducklings Swimming on Pond
Close Up Bufflehead Duck Family Resting
The tell tale sign that this was the blue-winged teal ducks was the band of blue on the lower part of it's wing as you can see in the images below.
Female Blue-winged Teal Stretching Her Wings With Her Mature Ducklings in Front Along With Mature Bufflehead Ducklings
Blue Winged Teal Ducks Showing Blue in Wing While Stretching and Grooming
The Teal duck family was out in the open water grooming and stretching their wings, some ducking down in the water feeding. Then they headed into the lily pads for more feeding.
Teal Duck Family 1 Grooming 1 Bottoms Up Feeding
Teal Duck Family Heading Into the Lily Pads to Feed
It was interesting to watch the mature teal ducklings skimming the water around the lily pads feeding.
Mature Teal Duckling Skimming Water Feeding
Happy Teal Duckling Swimming Among the Water Plants
The mature ducks found a resting spot among the reeds.
2 Female Blue-winged Teal Ducks Resting on Raised Reed Bed in the Pond
One more duck family that was swimming around at the pond was the Ruddy duck family with cute young ducklings.
Teal Family and Ruddy Duck With Ducklings
Female Ruddy Duck With Three Young Ducklings Swimming
Ruddy Duck and Ducklings Grooming Themselves
Close Up Female Ruddy Duck Grooming Itself
Then there was this lone young grebe who was floating around among the different duck families but was the only grebe I saw. There were no other mature grebes or other of their ducklings around. I'm wondering if was a lone survivor. The other ducks seemed to kind of adopt him.
Bufflehead and Teal Duck Families with Juvenile Grebe in Background Grooming Himself
Juvenile Pied-billed Grebe Stretching it's Leg While Swimming Among Bufflehead and Teal Mature Ducklings
Juvenile Grebe Stretching Wings by Resting Bufflehead Mature Ducklings
Close Up Juvenile Grebe Stretching Wings
Juvenile Pied-billed Grebes have this striping on it's head to help camouflage them to hide from predators.
Close Up Juvenile Grebe Showing Striped Head
I sure enjoyed watching the duck families down at the pond and i hope you did too!
I'll leave you with one last photo of the moon which greeted me in the early morning hours.
Close Up of Half Moon Showing Details on the Surface
This is my #WednesdayWalk hosted by @tattoodjay go check out his latest post here. He collaborates with @elizacheng and her #MakeMeSmile initiative see her latest post here
Also my Amazing Nature Contest August 2020 #1 entry. See details here and an entry to Photo52 2020 Challenge, Week Number 33 with a theme of "something new" details here. The photo I am entering for that contest is the one with a heading of "Blue Winged Teal Ducks Showing Blue in Wing While Stretching and Grooming"
Bird photos are for #featheredfriends hosted by @melinda010100
The photos were taken with my Canon PowerShot SX60 HS.
That ruddy sucks looks golden the feathers seem to glow. We have ducks so I love this blog and all the pictures very much so I want to wish you luck. Maybe I will join in the nature fun I am on holiday in Italy so might just see something new
Love that you have such a nice population of ducks nearby.
now this is a post that makes me smile loved it ;)
Those duck families are so very cute :)
Such a wide variety of ducks residing on the pond, what a pleasure to go walking to watch them developing over the summer months.
Lily growth on pond is also healthy, look forward to seeing the flowering when that arrives.
Another wonderful walk getting us outdoors with you through the lens...
What a peaceful place that must be to be able to live. Absolutely fantastic.