Ducks and Rain

The storm clouds were rolling in Tuesday afternoon at work but over the walkie-talkie I heard that one of our volunteers had some unusual ducks on the mile boardwalk. With the work's digital camera and binoculars in hand I sprinted out there and boy, what a find. Our first Black-bellied Whistling Duck babies! On my weekly bird counts I've seen one lone duck but I guess the mate was just hiding nearby. Today I went to check on them and snapped this picture. The solitary pair and their ducklings were accompanied by 4 more pairs. I'm hoping that we have a whole Black-bellied Whistling Duck nursery soon.

Here's the view from the nature center deck. When it finally started raining Tuesday all the ducklings hid under one of the parents' bodies. (This technique was also used today when the sun was blaring down on the young ones.)

With all the excitement at work I totally forgot about the big storm brewing. My commute home wasn't nearly as pleasant as I had hoped. Anytime you see traffic stopped and the oncoming lanes non-existent, you know there's trouble. My 30 minute drive turned into a little over an hour drive. The one good thing about stand still traffic is that it allows more time to look at the birds flying over head especially around the landfill.