Manky-ing around.....

Saturday I made a brief stop at the wetlands where I mostly saw Canada geese doing their "bottoms up" routine and little else. However, as I was leaving the Manky Mallard ducks all came out to greet me and spent a lot of time dunking and dipping and cleaning their feathers in front of me. The group consists of 3 black with lots of irridescent green on them, 1 B&W with a greenish head, and 2 light brown which I assume are females.
It was hard to get the B&W one showing all his pretty parts. He has a bit of a streak across the eye in white, tiny black feathers mixed on his chest and that greenish tinge to his head that only shows when he turns the right direction in the sun. And a very yellow bill. (These shots show the colors better if you click to make them larger.)

The black ones all have irridescent green in their feathers which can look so pretty when the sun hits them right. This one has more green than one of the others.

This one is a bit more black, with just a hint of green.

They were having a lot of fun cleaning and showing off their feathers to me.

There was a lot of splashing and tail wagging and dipping down under and then raising up on their tails.

I was suprised to see those white looking feathers buried under the wing of this one. I began to get their rhythm and know when they were going to raise up.

The brown ones were less active. They basically just remind me of really pale female Mallards.

It was fun to see them sit up and flap they wings....but hard to catch the motion!

My favorite shot of the black one with its head upside down cleaning under its wing

Head tucked in checking each feather.

They spent a great deal of time at this.

A side view while sitting up on his tail.

I can see just a hint of blue on this ones wing.....a bit of the "wild" Mallard showing up?

Very pretty and very tame.....always waiting around for a hand-out from someone who doesn't read the signs saying not to feed them.

Happy Thanksgiving.....

From our house to yours....Happy Thanksgiving!

"We thank thee all our God

With heart and hands and voices,

Who wonderous things hath done,

In whom his world rejoices;

Who, from our mother's arms,

Hath blessed us on our way

With countless gifts of love,

And still is ours today."

(Martin Rinkart 1636)
God is good!
I'm thankful for all my blogging friends!
I'm going to take the weekend off.....see you next week!

Jaguar babes.....

The main reason for going to the zoo last week was to see the baby jaguars which have just been allowed into the public area.A pair of sisters.....they are having a naming contest right now. Hmmm...any ideas?
Isn't she cute?

Mom came out to have a little meat, but wasn't too sure how she felt about having her babies on display.

You can see Mom glaring from the doorway while they crawl around. I believe she wanted them to come back inside.

"Don't touch my babies, or you answer to me!"

They have 2 zoo-cams set up to watch them on-line. Click here for the cams if interested.

Where the local and exotic birds mingle.....

Visiting the zoo on Friday was a wonderful day with nice weather for walking around. There were birds everywhere....both local and exotic. An interesting mixture! In the middle of our zoo is a very large lake and many wild fowl stop by, as well as the local Canada Geese and Mallards that stay there all year round.
We could see some Shoveler Ducks out in the middle, but by the time we walked down to the lake they had disappeared somewhere.
However, there were a nice flock of Ring Necked Ducks swimming out in the middle.

On the far side I could see a swan and a goose.

Inside Amazonia.....where we went to see the baby Jaguars....we saw these pretty pink Spoonbills as well as some Ibis.

And in the tree this lovely Red-Crested Cardinal! I just love this bird, but it wouldn't come out of the trees. So much like my local cardinal in the face and shape, but such beautiful color!

A bit of a side view.

A pair of exotic Ducks on the log were preening their feathers.

(couldn't find their name anywhere)

Back outside, I spotted a Sapsucker up in one of the trees.

And of course the zoo is over-run with peacocks, but I love their beautiful colors and patterns. So many different patterns on one bird....just amazing.

A tail shot

This one was up on this wall trying to display for a female down below, but it was so windy, it made him look really funny!

An Australian Emu giving me an evil eye!

A beautiful crane sleeping by the fence.

....and cleaning up a bit.

Another local peering from behind the post....Mockingbirds were flitting here and there around the lake.

One of three beautiful Macaws in the children's area.

The male Ostrich was enjoying the sunshine.

One of the female Ostriches peeking out of the fence at me.

High up in the tree a Wren was singing for us.

No bird here, but I loved the nest in among the berries of this tree!

Well....that's the bird mix from the zoo.....at least the ones that I took photos of.

They're coming, they're coming......

I heard from a friend that the geese were beginning to arrive in the flooded fields, so we headed to Henderson (Kentucky) Slough right after church....didn't even go home to change clothes. I get so excited at the prospect of seeing them and getting photos :-) We saw several nearby fields where the hunters were beginning to put up their decoys....boo! I shouldn't say that because they help fund the protected area where I get to see the geese and the geese seemed to know where the "no hunting" boundries are....smart geese! The first bit of water I saw only had Coots in it, but I stopped for a couple photos.
We drove past the other areas not seeing any geese and I was getting disappointed, but we did see this Greater Yellowlegs Sandpiper (maybe) in a shallow flooded field. We are having overcast weather again, so the light was so-so.

Finally on the way back, at one of the distant water areas, we spotted a bunch of the geese. I included this photo to show you how far away they are! You can see the dark line of them this side of the water on the left and there were some in the water.

Zooming in as close as I could.

I have to crop them to see much, but can see that the mixture includes Snowgeese in both white and dark colors and Greater White-Fronted Geese. Same mix as last year.

As more of them begin to arrive, they will move closer to the road among the flooded rows of corn and I will have better shots (fingers crossed). Didn't see any of the huge flocks in the air yet that I saw last year.....which is good with the hunters surrounding them waiting for them to stray over the invisible boundries between safety and non-safety.

A few coming in for a landing.

We'll wait a couple weeks....maybe...and go back to see if the huge numbers have arrived yet. I took most of my photos last year in December and January. Anyone who lives relatively close to Evansville or Henderson might want to consider a trip over to see all these geese a little later in the season! It is so awesome to see 1000's of them all over these flooded fields and there are usually ducks and a few swans mixed in with the geese. Unfortunately, it is about a 45 minute drive from our house, or I would be out there every day!