Finally.....

After looking at numerous ponds and hearing of people seeing Wood Ducks, I knew that some time my day would come!! And where else but....yes, Carolina Beach Lake. I certainly had never seen one there before and ran into a real "birder" who told me that they had seen one in the Christmas count (she hadn't) but that it was highly unusual. She was sitting in her car with her binoculars. I had gone over and knocked on her window and told her about the wood duck so she put up her hoodie and trudged over for a look -- I knew that would get some attention!!

She tells me that I missed some dowagers as well which had been there a couple of weeks ago -- will have to go re-inspect my pictures to see if I have mis-identified anything.

I couldn't help myself and took almost 150 pictures of this one duck. I was there so long that you can see a definite change in the amount of light I had!! But they are so beautiful -- nothing comes close! Be thankful I only put up a few -- it is hard to take a bad picture of a Wood Duck!!

I have been taking pictures of Grackles lately as well as I love their irridescent colors!

There were actually two daily walks where I saw no new birds -- almost shocking these days!

Despite all the lousy weather up north, I am looking forward to heading over to the Lake Ontario outlet to Irondequoit Bay near my house and taking pictures of all the various ducks up there which are different than down here!