Nice Surprises at Carolina Lake Yesterday!!

Well, since my Wood Duck Who Thinks He is a Mallard was again at Carolina Beach Lake yesterday, I decided to concentrate on closeups of his head.  Unfortunately, he never seems to be there when the light is good and a flash doesn't seem to help much.  I won't bore  you with the 50 other shots I took!  They have changed Blogger so that if you click once on any of the images, it will give you a strip of all the images in that blog all blown  up!  

The birds are beginning to show up for their migration (guess the weather was getting colder up north) and here are three male bluebirds crowding on the post across the street.

While reading the paper out on the porch this morning, we looked down and there were a male and a female House Finch on our palm tree eating those berries.  This is a rather  unusual view of a finch!

I walked around the Lake clockwise instead of my usual counter clockwise and thought that the Lake was strangely vacant of all bird life (except for the usual Coots, Mallards and Domestic Ducks)!!


However, just as I was getting back to the car, I spotted two ducks that I thought were mallards and it was hard to differentiate as I was looking into the setting sun.  It was lovely to discover that one of the  Northern Shovelers was back with what I thought was his mate.  It turned out to be a Red Headed Duck upon closer inspection!  So migration must be beginning finally!  I saw the Shovelers a few days last January.  They are another very attractive duck with their funny looking large bill.

Here is the Red Headed Duck.

Most of the time I was watching them, they were swimming together which why initially I thought they were a pair.

Okay, just one more closeup of my favorite duck!  I noticed today that their red eyes sometimes turn almostly completely tan and then revert back -- don't know whether he was getting sleepy or not.  The males of the Wood Ducks are very colorful while the females are very, very drab (like the female mallards).