Given the beauty and the abundance of habitat at Presque Isle, I found it surprising to learn that there are only two species of duck that nest here, the mallard and the wood duck. It’s also hard to believe it when you see the many thousands of waterfowl that migrate through PI in the late winter and early spring. Although waterfowl migration is nearing its end I thought I’d post a few pictures of some of the beautiful ducks and a few other migrants that pass through Presque Isle on there way to their breeding grounds. Appropriately, as I complete this post it looks like it is about to rain again here in Erie and I think, “This weather is just beautiful…if you’re a duck!”
A pair of gadwall.
A male hooded merganser.
A horned grebe nearing breeding plumage.
A pretty red-breasted merganser with lunch.
and her handsome potential mate.
Well, maybe not!
The park has been so wet that this pair of blue-winged teal have been frequenting a large shallow "pond" that is usually an open field.
This common loon in breeding plumage got much closer to the shore than I expected.
and soon they'll all be gone...
but, they’ll be back. In the meantime, we’ll have the beautiful warblers and other migrants to enjoy! They started arriving over a week ago and we’ve had pretty good numbers. Last Tuesday the bird banding station had to close down and release many birds unbanded because they ran out of holding bags! See the PI Bird Banding blog here. There is also a lot of migration going on off the park and in our own backyards. Check out Toni’s blog post about the birds migrating through her yard here.
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Absolutely beautiful captures! Makes me homesick.
So sorry that you aren’t going to be able to make it to the Festival this year. Have you heard we have had a purple gallinule at the head of the bay for about a week now? Only the second recorded in the county. Beautiful adult bird that I hope to get to photograph tomorrow:)