Birds of Spring at the Park, March 6

[dragoness_e]

Back on March 6 we took a turn around the park, seeing who had come back for spring. Like with the upcoming zoo pictures, I'll try to only show pictures of new birds and individuals and situations, not more of the same-old, same-old.


The black swans have a new crop of cygnets this year. I don't know if it's the same pair, of course--black swans of breeding age all look alike.

Swan family with 4 cygnets


Fluff-ball cygnets


As you can see, the cygnets are still little fluffballs, only a few weeks old.

Fluffy cygnet at shore


For some reason, we saw lots of turtles that day, I think because it was the first really warm weekend, and they were out of hibernation sunning themselves. There were several large softshell turtles lurking just at the surface...

Softshell turtle


The big mute swan is still around, of course.

His Magnificence, the King of Swans


Mute swan, preening


Last year's young black swan, preening



Last year's crop of black swan cygnets are still around, of course. They're all grown up.

One of our local grackles, foraging at the shore


We have a lot of these guys around, but they are shy of bread-flinging talking monkeys. He is a Boat-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus major).