With warmer weather indicating spring might finally be arriving we headed over to Mud Lake one morning after an overnight snowfall of about 2" of wet snow. The trees were still coved with the wet snow making it a beautiful scene.
Fall aster and golden rod remnants, beech and oak leaves as well as sumach seed heads were all well coated
A mouse, apparently on a mission, had left a single straight row of tracks, while a multitude of squirrel tracks had approached some dropped seeds.
A black squirrel had found some seeds deep in the snow
We heard some soft crying sounds and looked around to see from where they were coming. After a few moments we found two pairs of black squirrel;s, one pair on each of two trees, were not chasing each other, but sitting 3-4 feet above/below each other and making the sound.
While not a perfect recording, the vocalization can be heard in the video below. We had never heard squirrels making sounds like this before. (We thought about mating noises or something like that. Squirrel babies are born in March/April and a second litter in August/September)
We saw lots of turkey tracks, but no turkeys. Finally well off behind many other trees we spotted a turkey up in a tree. They roost in trees overnight, but are usually on the ground during the day. Perhaps this one had slept in.
A good number of vocal crows were overhead. T hese two were chasing each other and coming close to bud covered maple trees
While, once again, I didn't find any robins enjoying devouring minnows, there were many robins picking off buckthorn berries.
The usual selection of small birds were out - chickadees, nuthatches and juncos
Having discovered woodpeckers caching seeds a short while ago, we watched as this downy worked away at building his cache
The goldeneye ducks were up to their usual behaviour of riding the current downstream while diving for food and then flying back up to ride down again.
Some of the mallards were making their way to the nearby parking lot to see if their food had been dropped off yet. Someone frequently spreads out a 10lb (?) bag of cracked corn. Other mallards were resting along the shoreline, hoping for food to be delivered down there for them.
One, possibly two, pairs of wood ducks have returned. A bit on the early side, but I am sure they will be fine.
We dropped by Mud Lake a few days later with grankids in tow. The wild turkeys greeted us as we started down the trail. The males are starting to show breeding colours
Three turkeys seemed to take exception to a single mallard near the rocks that are feeding area for the ducks in the summer. That's the duck in the middle.
We rarely see a red-breasted nuthatch but one dropped in for some hand feeding. The photo is NOT good so it is really just record shot.
The male red-winged blackbirds arrived back in good numbers. They are singing loudly, but not as loud as they will be soon to mark their territories.
A few mourning doves have also arrived back, you frequently hear them before seeing them
I suspect this might be a male downy that hatched last summer. He seems to have very few red feathers on his head.
The mallards in flapping as they move about sometimes cast off feathers
Based on several Google searches, I believe this hair filled scat to be from a coyote
Towards the end of the month a male pintail duck had arrived. A pair had visited for a week or two in March 2021, but this time it was a male who seemed to be lost. He was hanging out with the mallards, following them around. It was on the second visit to photograph it that he showed himself. After looking in two spots, we were heading back to the car and saw 11 photographers with big lenses standing in a bunch firing away at the duck. (They were keeping a respectful distance).
