Along the Madagascal Stream as it winds its way through Grand Falls Township in north, central Maine, the red-wing blackbirds are ubiquitous this time of year.

Found this guy poking around on the beaver dam just upstream from a snow-machine bridge last week

The hooded merganser couple cruising along the no-name pond in the Maine backwoods two days ago.

We walked to the no-name pond in the backwoods yesterday to look for ducks. We sat by the pond edge for thirty minutes waiting for ducks to fly in. Then, movement on the far shore. A pair of hooded mergansers were already there, hiding along the shoreline. This is the male. He isn’t showing his distinctive crown and this slowed up my identification once I processed the images.

You can make out four wood ducks in this view. There were at least six floating around on this side of the middle bog.

Our favorite subject of this week is the wood ducks in the nearby bogs. Here is a male wood duck on the far side of the middle bog. This bog is relatively new since beavers dammed the nearby stream a year or so ago.