The first Ruddy Duck I saw this year was in a picture I took. I was trying to take a picture of a Yellow-Headed Blackbird - and I never even knew the Ruddy Duck was there until I was looking at the pictures on my computer back at home!? Both the Yellow-Headed Blackbird and the Ruddy Duck were out of focus! (I'll include it below for a laugh).
A week or so later I spotted more of them in the little pond just east of the Chief Mistawasis Bridge.
Ruddy Duck in the Birbs of Saskatchetoon 2022 Sketchbook - Volume Two!
The aforementioned picture... taken at the Chappell Marsh.
Though I took a dozen or so pictures of this Yellow-Headed Blackbird, this is the only picture the Ruddy Duck shows up in!? It must have saw me taking a picture and got shy and hid or something!?
The rest were taken in the pond off McOrmond Drive just east of the Chief Mistawasis Bridge.
I've seen SO MANY different birds there - many that I've ONLY seen there - which seems crazy, because it's such a small wetland and it's right next to a very busy road!
More taken a day or two later.
They are quite striking ducks!
TWO of them!
Well I seem back on track with these.
Still to come: Black Tern, Bonaparte's Gull, Belted Kingfisher, Bobolink, Red-Breasted Nuthatch, Red-Eyed Verio, Cedar Waxwing, Redhead, Peregrin Falcon, American Kestrel, and a Baltimore Oriole!!
Interesting duck. It seems to have an attitude/bearing, or maybe just the way it is "built", that shows in you drawing, too.
ReplyDeleteThanks! It is funny how it sticks its tail feathers up sometimes. I don't know enough about them to know what that's all about. But, as you say, it does make it look like it has poise!
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