On a windy, cold-for-me, day this week I headed to a nearby preserve: the Manatee Road entrance to Robinson Preserve. Walking briskly to warm up, I paused at a protected area and discovered a group of birds in the distant grasses: a Little Blue Heron flying in (blueish/grayish legs = little blue), White Ibis (notice their red-pink curved bills) and a Great Egret (right side of photograph; if you could see its legs, they would be black).
But wait, what is that paddling duck-like bird?
I took a few more photographs and used What's this bird? to help figure it out. I narrowed it down to Merganser, but what type? Here is another photograph.
They are both Hooded Mergansers. The lead is a first year male and the other is a female. Notice the golden eye and darker bill on the male. The female has more orange on its bill and a darker eye.
Male, golden eye and darker bill.
When that male Hooded Merganser matures, he'll look like this (a black head with a patch of white with that hood appearance).
Female Hooded Merganser (yellow-orange in bill, dark eye):
And now, in the foreground with the female Hooded Merganser, what about this pair of ducks? What type are they?
They are Female Redheads! (I needed the group to help with the identification.)
On my drive home, I stopped on 53rd to get a photograph of hundreds of female and male Redheads.
Though I photographed these birds at the preserve, I have seen them here in Wildewood Springs, too.
