Migrants are Here!

Last night as I passed an old snowmaking pond on the way back up to the cabin, I found this handsome pair of Ring-necked Duck on it. I almost missed them. The pond is usually populated by a menage a trois of mallards--two males and a female that return every spring. So when I first saw two ducks on the pond, I barely turned my head to look but when I did, I soon realized they weren't mallards.

I lived at the cabin for many years before I saw my first pair of ring-necks here. But in the last two years I've suddenly had three sightings of them. I don't know if this means there are more ring-necks around, if their migration route is suddenly taking them past Roundtop, or even if the larger new pond is an attractant, even though they weren't sitting on it. The birds were very calm, ignoring a pair of Roundtop employees taking their after work walk around the pond, as well as the skiers nearby on the bunny slopes, not to mention me, screeching the car to a halt to photograph them.

Last night I hear another flock of snow geese but the most common sound was the near constant honk of Canada geese flying north well after dark. I went outside several times last evening and heard them each time. Spring is coming.