Birds of a Feather

I took the weekend off and it was just lovely. Not just because I wasn't working, but because the weather decided to play Spring. I meandered off with my camera, intending to take photos of construction sites and I did that, too. But somehow I ended up down by the water again. 

I know. Big surprise.

This time, I wandered pretty far afield, further than I've gone in a while. Before I knew it, I found myself at the foot of Yonge Street, the longest street in the world (although something about the Wikipedia entry makes me think that another country has snagged the honours). There were ducks. Interesting ducks, quite different from the regular quackers . Not that I don't love them, too, but as I may have mentioned before, I'm sort of getting into this birdwatching thing.

 Everybody were just hanging out, including the guy in a kayak


The cast of characters were several longtailed ducks


and another one that I think was a female Merganser, although I'm not sure if she was Red-breasted or Common, although I'm leaning towards the former, because of the crest on her head. As an aside, I don't think it's nice to call such a beautiful bird common, but I wasn't in charge of naming it.

The water was really quiet, rippling around the birds and depending on where I was in relation to the sun, the colours changed

Regardless of the particulars, both the longtailed duck and the Merganser are diving birds and I spent some time watching them hunt for food

 They'd swim around and when they got going, they moved at a fair clip


and every now and again, they'd stick their head in the water to (I assume) look for fish
 

When they saw something (again, I assume) they'd get ready and dive down and stay for a long time, coming up pretty far from where they went down
 

I have no idea what this guy was doing


 

I had a great time watching them


  


Comments

Diane said…
Duck, duck, more duck (you needed to get a goose picture).
8:39 AM
Joyce said…
Too bad we can't put a little web-cam on their heads so we could see what they see under the water...that would be cool!
10:22 AM
Anonymous said…
Good for you for taking some well deserved time off!
Andrew
3:23 PM
Marianna Paulson said…
You get big Auntie Stress points for doing what restores you! :)

I've never seen the long-tailed ducks before.
12:36 AM
Anonymous said…
Beautiful photos, Lene. Thanks so much for sharing!
3:27 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Farber’s Disease: Could Your Child’s Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis Be Misdiagnosed?

Image
Joint inflammation or contractures. Nodules (small lumps under the skin or in other tissues). A weakened or hoarse voice. Children with these symptoms may have been diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) or other types of juvenile arthritis . But do they actually have JIA or do they have Farber’s disease? An equine digression When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. This is an adage in the medical world that encourages doctors to not wander off exploring rare and esoteric reasons for a patient’s symptoms. Because most of the time, that hoof beat of a rash likely isn’t the plague, the joint pain more likely a type of arthritis than the bends (especially if the person has never scuba dived) and you get the picture. But once in a while, it actually is a zebra. And even if it’s first identified as a horse, eventually, the stripes come through. It took five years of my parents running around to different doctors before one finally recognized that I had
Read more

13 Things to Know for Rheumatoid Arthritis Newbies + Facebook Live

Image
Getting a diagnosis of any type of chronic illness can throw you for loop. There is so much to know and you have so little energy. My new slideshow for HealthCentral collects 13 things you need to know as an RA newbie : "Receiving a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a moment of strange duality. On one hand, you may be relieved to finally have answers for the symptoms you’ve been experiencing. On the other, it can be incredibly overwhelming to find out you have a chronic illness. Wrapping your head around all the new factors RA brings into your life is a long-term process. Here are some of the things you need to know." See the slideshow on HealthCentral . And in case you missed it, here is the Facebook Live I did yesterday talking about this topic:   
Read more