What a Ducky Day!

It was a beautiful day yesterday and I was hoping to get out midday to take some more pictures of the ducks at the outlet but as I was coming back with a friend from lunch, our car was leaving the driveway and DH didn't return until late in the afternoon and no sun. I went anyway and was not disappointed. Evidently other photographers (the kinds with the fancy equipment) thought this was a good time of day to take pictures! The birds were all in a huge feeding frenzy. I had no idea that there was that much good to eat in the bay water!! Gulls were diving and the two varieties of diving ducks were also going down frequently for food. Of course there were the everpresent swans and even some mallards this time. This was looking from the outlet over to the lake.


This was a male oldsquaw which is a type of diving duck (and they were diving a lot while I was there ). I had a hard time identifying because this is their winter coloration which is most white while their summer is mostly black! Note the long skinny tail -- some people call these a long tailed duck.

I believe this was a female oldsquaw and not anywhere near as pretty.

This was the view back toward the bay. There were hundreds of gulls diving for food and making a racket. These are the deserted boat docks in the foreground.



In this mix of birds, there are the Mute Swans, Canada Geese and a few Mallards.

This was a Mute Swan swimming very nearby. They are majestic birds and if you look at the above picture by double clicking, you can see how much bigger they are than the Canada Geese.

These are two Lesser Scaups -- I am almost positive now that these are Lesser Scaups and not the Greater variety. Again, they are a beautiful bird.

Couldn't let the opportunity to photograph two pairs of mallards in the late afternoon. Cold doesn't seem to bother them in the least but they don't hang out with the other ducks who kind of mingle together.