I quickly found the mandarin duck couple at Lake Mirror in downtown Lakeland. I had heard the city had received two mandarin couples for the lake. I only found one of the couples but did not know there were two until later after my visit.
They were napping while I was there but something up in the sky caused them to look up for a few minutes. Hawks and eagles sometimes cruise through there so they might have seen something high up in the sky.
Lake Mirror has a small floating deck in the middle of the lake which is probably used for seasonal decorations. The two fake owls are there to keep the real birds off the deck but you can see how much the real birds pay attention.
I headed over to Lake Morton, a couple of blocks away to see if any of the swans or geese were nesting yet. I found this funny looking mallard. I know he’s saying “Stop staring at my funny feathers on my head.”
There were two swan couples building nests.
The usual “limpkin with a snail” shot.
The black swans were posing for me.
And staying busy preening since mating season was starting.
Snowy egret in the early morning.
Somehow missed this lake..my grandma lived there for 30 years.
That mallard must have just come home from the hair salon after a bad hairstyling!
Your outing was quite the success!
It looks like the gulls have been “expressing their opinions” all over the fake owls!
)
Amazing ducks! Wonderful light on the little snowy.
Beautiful shots. Love the bird perched on the owl’s head.
i just read about these 2 pair of mandarins on wally jones’ blog yesterday.
I am so enamored with the mandarin ducks! Beautiful photography!
Nice, Dina! The owl shot is particularly funny. It’s like the mockingbird I always see perched on the sign that says “No Parking!”
Great minds think alike! Now I’ll have to go delete my photos of the Mandarins ’cause yours are so much better!
Did you also get to see the Black-necked Swans?
Oh, Dina, the mandarins are gorgeous, aren’t they? And the ruffled duck…that poor mallard, I wonder what happened to him. Surely they can’t do that themselves, on purpose?
We saw very few birds in Italy, and no other kinds of wildlife at all. Lots of dogs being walked in Venice, and a cat here and there on the mainland, but few animals at all. So sad.
K
That is interesting, since I only saw the Mandarins at zoos.
How beautiful they all are.