The Wood Duck Who Thought He Was a Mallard...

Well, there was an unusually large group of mallards at Carolina Beach Lake today and imagine my surprise when I looked closely at the bunch and there was one of those beautiful Wood Ducks right in the middle.  Now the mallards knew he wasn't a mallard and weren't crazy about him hanging around with them but the Wood Duck seemed to think  he had found friends.  Like last year, of course I took many many pictures, only a couple of which I will share.

He was hanging around and really let me get pretty close!  You can see the white spots on his chest here.  It was getting toward the end of the day because of a late start (more about that below.)

He didn't want to swim.  There were a lot of mallards today as well as the usual Coots and domestic ducks.

And one lone Pied Billed Grebe who I spotted pretty close to shore.  His partner wasn't there today.

The sun began to set just as I was leaving.  They have the Christmas lights up all around the lake ready to be lit after Thanksgiving.  It is so colorful around here from Thanksgiving to Christmas with colorful lights lining the main street of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach.


The reason I was late for my walk is that I had been contacted by email by a reporter for the Wilmington Star News who was writing a wrap up article about the end of filming of Arthur Newman, Golf Pro with Colin Firth and Emily Blunt.  She wanted to talk to me about meeting Colin and my thoughts and she called just as I was heading out the door.  I don't know if she will include anything in the article or not but I got to thank her personally for helping me on my quest to meet him.