Bufflehead Ducks
Winter Ducks
When I was a kid and we lived in the Annapolis Valley, late November was a time to start looking along our marsh for the winter ducks. Of most interest to us as duck hunters were the northern black ducks, birds that took the place of our summer resident ducks as both flew south for the winter, our breeding ducks having left, to be replaced by the ducks that bred further north.
Then, there would be the appearance of ducks that didn’t normally reside in Nova Scotia for breeding, but came almost completely during migration. This would be ducks like the Bufflehead and the Goldeneye, ducks that are not here in big numbers in the summer, but come late fall and winter, many of these ducks would come to the coast of Nova Scotia either on their way south, or to stay for the winter.
This past week, I drove down to a Ducks Unlimited marsh near Melbourne, NS, just outside of Yarmouth, and was excited to be able to get this week’s image – a trio of Bufflehead in flight. These ducks are very acrobatic and normally quite wary, so to be able to get close enough to them for a good image was fun – and it made me think about the winter to come, as their presence means cold weather on the way.
Photographing birds is a great way to explore the local areas, but it’s also a very good way to see for yourself the rhythms that nature has.
Winter is coming.
