I found a pair of WOOD DUCKS standing and walking on limbs in a stand of large
white oaks this morning while driving to one of my atlas block areas. I was
heading down Ebenezer Church Rd, about a mile from my house, when I saw two odd
shapes on a large & old White Oak limb about 25-30 feet above the ground.
After stopping, pulling over, & putting my binoculars on the birds I realized
the shapes were a male and female Wood Duck. They were walking, if that's
really the right word, back & forth, on this very large horizontal limb,
occasionally hopping to neighboring limbs. The female then flew to a very
large cavity about 30 feet above the ground in a neighboring White Oak and
spent some time looking in it. The male joined her and both looked into the
cavity from several different angles. Reaching for my camera I realized it was
at home on the kitchen counter where I'd left it in hopes of catching a couple
good photos of the RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS that have been visiting my feeders
this week. After about 10 minutes the two Wood Ducks flew back further into
the woods when a pick-up truck drove by me. However, right after they left a
Fox Squirrel ran up one of the neighboring White Oaks.
From that location I drove to Foggy Bottom Rd and walked northwest on it near
from where it intersects with Austin Grove Rd. About 8:30 am I heard an
EASTERN SCREECH OWL whinnying that just wouldn't stop; while it sounded like
it was at least 100 yards off the road I've found that they're often much
closer than it seems. This was about a mile from where Laura Weidner and I
found both a Screech Owl and a Barred Owl about a week ago. While standing
there listening to the screech owl I started hearing RED-HEADED WOODPECKERS
behind me. At that point a COOPER'S HAWK flew into the area where the
Red-headed Woodpeckers were and everything shut right up while the Cooper's
Hawk rapidly vocalized, kih, kih, kih, before flying away. Except for a
couple more Red-headed Woodpeckers and one RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET singing its
entire repertoire, something I rarely hear, I didn't see or hear anything else
special.
