Winter Ducks

 

I visited Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge this week, to look for winter ducks. It was windy, cold, and lovely. Click to enlarge.

There were lots of ducks. I saw norther shovelers.

Pintails.

Buffleheads. 

 

A male bufflehead with some food he caught dangling from his beak.

Ruddy ducks!

The two pictured above gave me pause because they were swimming together, and seemed at first to be a couple. They turned out to be two different species. In front, a female bufflehead. In back, an immature male hooded merganser. Tricky!

It was worth the trip for beautiful scenery and abundant interesting ducks. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge has an 8-mile one-way wildlife drive. Click on this sentence to visit the refuge website for information and directions. It's a nice place to visit, even in the cold. Stay in your car or wear your warmest coat.

Hooded Mergansers

A pair of hooded mergansers, Lophodytes cucullatus, in the foreground. The female on the left has a cinnamon colored crest. The male's white hood is expandable. 

Running on the water for takeoff. 

Click to enlarge. 

Birdwatchers call them "hoodies." I saw this pair and lots more of them at the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, New Jersey, on the day after Thanksgiving. The little ducks are about 20 inches long, have a wingspan of about two feet, and weigh between one and two pounds. They are found throughout the eastern half of the United States and in the Pacific northwest year round, and in various parts of North America for winter and breeding. (Click here to see a map if you are interested.) Hoodies are diving ducks, likely to disappear while you are watching them and reappear at a distance in any direction. Underwater they catch fish, crustaceans, and insects, or pick up mollusks and vegetation.