The tiny pond in my neighborhood has a rare occupant every winter. I finally saw him recently and stopped by to take his picture. The hooded merganser was the only duck in the pond that wasn’t a muscovy duck. He usually has a mate with him but this morning he was alone. I hope she’s just late getting in from up north. I hope he doesn’t spend the winter alone in this little pond.

 

Hooded mergansers are very skittish.  He stayed across the little pond at first.  I sat down on the grass and all of the muscovy ducks came swimming over to me.  They sat next to me and I guess the hoody thought I wasn’t a threat because he did swim a little closer. He never got all the way to the edge or up on the bank but he did get much closer than usual. He also spent some time preening in front of me which a good sign but maybe he’s lonely. I’m going to keep looking for that lady duck.

The faces that get no respect, the muscovies came right up to me and I’m assuming they were looking for a handout. After a few minutes they just plopped right down next to me. I didn’t feel like getting up so I started taking pictures of their faces. They are almost like snowflakes, no two faces are just alike.

They got bored with me and started snoozing. It was time to go home.