Last week I revisited the "lek" where the Sharp-tailed Grouse dance.... and on Thursday I spent another sunrise photographing Wood Ducks.
Each visit requires a blind and being in place before sunrise... especially the pond with the Wood Ducks. The lek was even more active with "dancers" this trip, I counted twenty eight grouse as they came scampering in close to the blind. I spent three hours watching them spar and perform their spectacular dance moves and listened to their "cooing sounds."
The Wood Ducks were a different venue... one of quietness to the awakening of morning sounds in the forest. Wood frogs croaking, the splash and
ripples of a swimming muskrat and a Pine Marten scampered along the dim shoreline. No deer mouse this trip, as I was in a different blind on the second
pond.
The majority of the pond was covered with a thin sheet of ice, as the temperature was in the twenties. The section of the pond where my blind sat
was ice free, which turned out to be perfect as the ducks landed in that small section and stayed close to my blind. I ended up having seven
Wood Ducks dropping in; one hen and six drakes.
