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02 January 2007

I hope all y'all have had a great holiday weekend! DS and I drove about halfway across the state hoping to get a good start on this year's bird list. It was rainy most of the day, so birding wasn't as good as we'd hoped. But we had a great time and watched a gorgeous sunset on the way home.

We stopped at one of my favourite spots in Madison, Lake Frances, to add Wood Ducks to our lists. There have been quite a few there every time we've been. Up till now. Not a single WD was to be found. Also MIA was the female Mandarin. We first spotted the male Mandarin Duck about 3 years ago. Last year, we found him with a mate. This trip, he was hanging out with 3 Mallards and a gargantuan 'Malloid' (mallard hybrid). There were several Cormorants and Anhingas, 12 Pied-billed Grebes swimming and diving and 2 Great Egrets scouring the shoreline.

The late hour and bad weather didn't make for great photography, but I did manage to get a few nice shots of the Mandarin. Isn't he gorgeous?!

Well, I reckon y'all will have to take my word for it. He really is gorgeous. But blogger still won't let me upload any pics. Apparently a lot of people are having the same problem and the blogger staff has yet to respond to any of the help requests.

EDIT: I've uploaded the pics to Photobucket so I can link them here.
Well, for some reason, the edges of the pics were cut off. *shrug* For those of you who asked, you can now click on the pics to see the originals.

Mandarin Duck

Mandarin and Malloid

4 comments:

MinorcanMeteorolgist said...

Wow, I've been out in natural Florida all my life, and I've never seen a bird that colorful. He looks like an abstract painting with feathers!

SophieMae said...

He does give the Wood Ducks a run for their money, doesn't he? They haven't been very successful in FL. If you're interested, here's a little blurb with a link to FWC's report.

MinorcanMeteorolgist said...

Well I must say, for all their beauty, I am very glad they are not successful on account of that fact that they are non-native.

TropicRedbird said...

OMG .......... fantastic shot! Gorgeous bird