A morning walk at Chesnut Park

In mid-April I was out for a walk at Chesnut Park early in the morning. I parked my car and was walking towards the trail and these two ladies came cruising over the bridge and onto the trail I was heading for. I followed them to the boardwalk and they went into the woods.

I saw 2 young barred owls sitting in the same tree. The one on the far left kept his back to me the entire time. The one on the right was leaning over, almost upside down. I think that was how he was sleeping. I’m not sure how comfortable that is.

Mom was sleeping in a nearby tree.

A wintering coot that hadn’t left yet was eating some grass from the lake.

Looking out on one of the docks I caught sight of two baby wood ducks. They were swimming quickly towards the reeds.

Then I realized there was a family of wood ducks up against the reeds. They floated just outside the reeds for a while and then headed back into hiding.

The above was taken with my phone. This is where the baby ducks were hiding.

Tree swallows were flying around overhead.

A grackle was yelling at something, something they do often.

Dragonflies were everywhere.

The lake was calm and quiet.

Saturday's Critters

 

Baby quackers everywhere

I stopped by Lake Morton in downtown Lakeland on my way back from Lake Wales in late April. I wasn’t sure what I would find but I wasn’t expecting to see so many wood duck babies. The first family I saw had 7 babies. They were napping close to Mom (it was after lunch at this point). 

Dad was standing near the family. These guys are usually pretty skittish so it was weird to see him walking around on the grass.

I found another family a little ways around the lake. This Mom had 4 babies (one was tucked under her).I think wood duck babies have the prettiest faces.

Farther around the lake and I found another Mom with just one baby.

A couple was swimming out in the middle of the lake.

On the other side of the lake another Mom had 7 babies and they were swimming around under the big leaves. As I stood there taking pictures, Mom came up on the rock and the babies followed.

Then I found a Mom with 3 babies.

There was one Muscovy family and I couldn’t resist taking pictures of those fuzzy yellow duckies.

This was a fun afternoon. The amount of wood ducks on this lake seem to get bigger every year. I’m assuming the numbers get smaller in the summer with some of them migrating north during the hot months. I usually don’t get over to Lakeland during the heat of the summer so I’m not sure.

Another chapter of “So many babies, so little time”

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Baby wood ducks are the cutest duck babies. They have a pretty pale face compared to the mallards which have a lot of pattern on their faces. There were several wood duck families at my favorite lake in Lakeland recently. One of the families with older babies were all napping under a tree. Later, the younger babies were running around chasing after each other and trying to keep up with mom.

Linking to Saturday’s Critters