Sunday, March 16, 2014

Starting With The Gathering Of Wood Ducks


I took a walk along some abandoned train tracks in Middletown on Sunday morning. Winter continued its icy grip as the wind gusts exceeded 30 mph.  
As I searched off in the distance I found an encouraging early sign of the arrival of spring. March is the time that Wood Ducks start gathering at their breeding grounds in Connecticut. I counted another 50 Wood Ducks flying overhead in addition to the ones seen in this (overly-zoomed) photo.
Here's a sharper view of a male followed by a female (older photo). The official arrival of Spring is only 4 days away. Warm weather and massive waves of migrating birds are soon to follow but the gathering of Wood Ducks is a great place to start!

5 comments:

Steadyjohn said...

Nice find Larry. Btw, today I read an interesting story, poem actually, by Longfellow called"The Birds of Killingworth". The poem is based on an actual event in that Connecticut town when the birds were decimated as destroyers of the farmers' crops and the unintended consequences of that action. Interesting tale! Link:
http://storyoftheweek.loa.org/2014/03/the-birds-of-killingworth.html

Larry said...

John-thanks John-That was a nice find on your part as well! I love local history and the fact that it has a connection to birds makes it even more interesting.

Michelle said...

You have some sweet captures here.

troutbirder said...

they are truly one of the most gorgeous birds out there....:)

Kathie Brown said...

What a find! I can't wait to see some for myself!