One of the BEST aspects about where we live is that we are a two minute walk from conservation land. If you couldn't hear the roads, you could almost imagine that you were in a pristine wilderness! Cranberry Lake is gorgeous, we hear in the summer you can even jump off the rocks into a deep pool and there are no leeches. I'm done with leeches after Nepal. It snowed last week and I went out for a wander around the lake. This weekend Jay and I went for a longggg walk around parts of the land we had not explored yet. Both days involved some serious treats for us little baby birders. Maybe ring-necked ducks are common around here, but we have never seen them before. What a great view and a really striking bird. Almost every time we come to the lake we are able to see hooded mergansers. And we saw two wood ducks this weekend! I don't think either one of us has ever seen a wood duck before, so we just sat on a bench and stared through our binoculars as long as we could at this gorgeous bird. Little wrens twirped around us and I even heard a varied thrush, bringing back memories of Glacier Bay. A bald eagle flew down toward the lake while we were watching the wood ducks - causing a commotion among all the buffleheads and other ducks, even the ravens added in a squawk or two to express their displeasure at the arrival of this large predatory bird. We were pretty happy with all these sightings. Backyard birding!
Cranberry Lake with snow (above) and no snow (below)
Ring-necked ducks
Hooded merganserSadly, the wood ducks were close enough to view with binoculars, but not for a photograph. You will just have to imagine all the colors!!
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