Buffleheads, Goldeneyes and Common Mergansers
I had a much-needed return to Lakeside Park yesterday. Some free time away from work and a beautifully sunny morning took me to the far side of the lake, way off the beaten track and out into the reed beds, keeping well away from all the extra human visitors we are currently seeing at the Lakeside Park, and also as I had seen some ducks with different markings than I had ever seen before. Not ducks like our resident mallards who will come over and peck at my boots, these were more in tune with the pied-billed grebe and very wary of humans. I needed to be smart if I was going to return home with some useful photos. First up we have the common mergansers; underwater hunters with a hooked bill to help latch onto fish. Mergansers peer through the water to locate their target. And then they dive, chasing their prey. First one, two and then three out of the four mergansers came up with fish. The closest merganser appeared to have caught a large goldfish. In addi...