Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies

You know what I love about waterbirds? The little buggers are easy to photograph. Well, relatively. When you’re standing on the boardwalk at Juanita and they’re out amongst the riot of vegetation that thrives in the shallow end of Juanita Bay in the summertime, they can sometimes be a bit hard to spot. Like so:

Image shows the old pier at Juanita Bay. The water is full of lines of stumps where the dock used to be. The stumps have plants growing atop them; one has a huge plant with spears of purple flowers. The water is filled with water lilies. Some ducks are barely visible swimming among them. In the distance, more birds are swimming in the open water.
UFD I

I swear to you, there are birds in that photo.

The ones I’d like you to identify are easier to spot in subsequent shots, although none of them were particularly interested in posing.

A brown duck with white speckles is standing on a triangular block of wood, grooming itself. In the distance, a duck with a bright orange bill and a white throat is swimming.
UFD II

At least in this shot, you can see the grooming one has a spot of white on its face.

The duck in the background is swimming away. The grooming one has a bit more of its head visible. Its feet are brown, and it has a white streak near its eye.
UFD III

Aren’t they lovely, even if they’re inconsiderate little bastards?

I can’t wait for summer again. There’s nothing quite like wandering around the bay when everything’s abloom and life is abundant.

 

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Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies
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4 thoughts on “Unidentified Flying Dinosaur: Life Among the Lilies

  1. 2

    Yes, Wood Ducks. The preening one on the perch is a female, probably mother to all the others, which look to be mostly grown fledglings (I think I can see three young in the original photo, when blown up to full size).

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