Buffleheads

Buffleheads - female and male

Wednesday evening as I returned to the cabin, I found a pair of buffleheads on the old snowmaking pond at Roundtop. These small, diving ducks are common in winter on the bigger lakes and rivers in my area, but finding them on a small snowmaking pond is not. Once, last fall, I had a single male bird on one of the ponds, but this marked the first time I’d ever seen a female of the species here.

No more than an hour before I saw the birds, my area had a brief, intense, rain/snow/sleet/hail event (take your pick). I suspect these birds were migrating north when the storm hit, and the poor weather forced them down out of the sky.

I raced back to the cabin, grabbed the camera’s not-very-long lens and drove back to the pond to try for a photo. The photos aren’t the best as, compounding the lens issue, the buffleheads kept swimming to the opposite side of the pond to put some distance between us. That said, a car still makes a good blind from which to photograph birds or animals. If I hadn’t been in a car, the birds likely would have flown the moment I appeared at the bottom of the lane.

I took a few photos and then left the birds alone. They were gone this morning, as I suspected they would be. The weather had cleared, and they are likely on their way north again.

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.