Flirtatious Frick

January 27th, 2012 § 0

What? Courting behavior in the dead of winter? It appears tiny, stubby Frick is already planning her summer nuptials by batting her eyes at a handsome drake even though she’s only about six months old. To be honest, I haven’t seen any eye batting, but I’ve watched her swim in front of several drakes and do some serious head bobbing.

Hens bob their heads and turn slightly away from drakes they are trying to impress. As they bob, they cluck. It’s sort of a giggle as if the drake has just told them something terribly amusing and slightly bawdy. This particular drake shows signs he’s finding her infatuating. He returned some head bobbing and encouraged her to trail along as he paddled around what’s left of open water. Mallards pair up for the breeding season but unattached drakes will rush to share the hen’s affection if the selected male lets his guard down. I didn’t realize pairing up begins so early, but it makes perfect sense. Ducks have little else to do during the winter months. They don’t have cable or an Internet connection.

Tunnelers and prowlers

January 26th, 2012 § 0

January 22: The snow is gone now due to warmer weather and rain. We only had a couple of inches on the ground this past week. Beside the millpond, the light snow had been pushed upward by tunneling critters (above), probably mice or shrews. I didn’t see them make these, but I’ve seen it happen in the past and it’s comical to watch.

On the pond, tracks parallel the shoreline (left). They weren’t fresh so I couldn’t tell what species made them, but I suspect a feral cat looking for mice like the ones who had tunneled. I like how the tracks separate. While it could indicate two animals who parted company there, it’s more likely a round trip made by a single prowler. Winter is a good time to observe things like this if you can endure the cold fingers and toes.

Bathing: Ducks don’t have towels

January 23rd, 2012 § 3

After the head dipping explained yesterday, bathing ducks want to remove as much water as they can from their wings and bodies. If they are in the water, they paddle like mad to raise out of the water as far as they can. Then they vigorously flap their wings (above and below left). The orange around the ducks in these shots are reflections from nearby street lamps.

If they are standing on firm ground, they will stand tall and flap while shaking their tail feathers (below right). Mrs. Pom Pom (right) seems to be auditioning for the ballet and thinks she’s a swan. Note how she stands on her tiptoes as she gracefully fans her wings.


Even when not bathing, ducks will stand upright and flap a few times. It’s sort of like yawning to them. It probably keeps their wing muscles in shape after they’ve been sitting for a while. They also flap following stressful encounters in what appears to be a way for them to toss off the adrenalin rush. These photographs have nice detail and are worth clicking on to see the larger versions.

Bathing: Icy head dipping

January 22nd, 2012 § 1

Watching ducks bath is fun no matter what time of year. Even in mid-winter, they frolic in the icy water and seem to bath more. Maybe it helps warm their bodies. Bathing is ritualistic. First they drip their head into the water several times. Each time they raise their head, they roll sheets of water over their backs. That’s what you’re seeing in these two photographs. As the water washes over them, they vigorously wiggle their wings and tails so the water gets under them. Sometimes they flap around in the water as if they’re injured. Tomorrow, you’ll see what happens next.

Pond Pin-Up: Blonde Bombshell

January 21st, 2012 § 2

You’ve seen this beauty many times. She’s the blonde starlet born in September. Standing below the boardwalk at the north end of the millpond at night, the beads of water on her feathers and the rough surface of the ice surround her with sparkle.  Like yesterday’s pin-up, Valiant, she has a wispy feather stuck to her bill. I’m anticipating she’ll raise equally gorgeous ducklings this next summer unless she’s swept off her webbed feet by one of the pond’s mongrels. :-)

Pond Pin-Up: Valiant

January 20th, 2012 § 2

There are a number of ducks I think are beautiful. I’m going to post crisp focus shots of them so I can record how handsome they are. Valiant is one of them. She’s very easy to spot because she’s buff colored and is the only duck with a white neckring that goes completely around. There’s another duck that has a white patch at the back of her neck but it’s not complete like this lovely lady.

You’ve read about Valiant since she was abandoned at two days old and it’s great to report she’s doing well at the north end of the pond this winter. She’s standing on the ice in this shot and has a white feather sticking to her bill. I see that a lot. If their bills are wet when they preen, feathers stick to them and ducks don’t seem to care. Maybe it’s a fashion statement.

Where debris collects

January 19th, 2012 § 2

In plain sight, but totally ignored, this debris beside the raised concrete circle at the millpond gazebo makes an interesting composition. I like the clutter that softens the stark straight and curved lines of the cement. There’s a balance between manmade and natural objects. The acorn caps from a nearby oak are tossed aside after the squirrels eat the nuts in autumn. There’s a seed pod for a locust tree and a wayward light bulb from a string of Christmas lights (lower left) thrown in there, too.

Where are your galoshes?

January 18th, 2012 § 1

Except for hens tending ducklings, ducks ignore each other most of the time as shown in the above picture. The duck in the center is the son of the duck on the right, the mom of the last brood of the season. The duck on the left is either a buddy of the son or mom’s suitor. It’s difficult to tell at this time of the year when ducks aren’t courting.

I went home with two shots (right and below) where it appears mom is looking directly at junior’s feet. Ducks don’t stare at other ducks so this is surprising behavior. It’s as if mom was saying, “You knew the ice was melting. Why didn’t you put on your galoshes like I told you to do?”

Rabbit hokey-pokey

January 17th, 2012 § 1

All together now:

You put your right paw in,
you put your right paw out.
You put your right paw in
and you shake it all about …**

Okay. That’s not what’s really happening in the above shot. This is Rabbit 2 who lives near the Fire Station. He’s friendly if you move toward him slowly. After he watched me for a minute (right), he turned around and stretched. Unfortunately, I pushed the shutter too early. He was in the process of putting both forepaws on the ground and raising his tushie toward the sky. Cats do stretches like that, too. After his stretch, he hopped away without saying good-bye.

**Special note to Christine down under: Wikipedia tells me, Hokey pokey is a flavor of ice cream in your part of the world, but around here, it’s a dance we all learn as little kids. In Great Britain, the dance is called the Hokey Cokey. Of course the Bunny Hop would be a better choice for this fellow but there are no words to that!

Shards of water

January 16th, 2012 § 4

The waxing and waning of winter has created incredible patterns in the ice of the Brighton millpond. Here, ducks stand on large shards that have “calved” when the temperatures have risen and then refrozen as the temperatures have fallen again. One of the shards has lodged itself under the others when a strong northern wind moved across the pond. The layers look like waxed paper to me and I enjoy the various positions of the ducks upon the hard-edged pattern.

What’s beyond the frame

January 15th, 2012 § 5

I hesitate to post the above shot looking northward at the businesses abutting the cattails on the far shore of the Brighton millpond where it meets Grand River Avenue. For more than two years, I’ve done by best to conceal most manmade elements around the pond, but I wanted to show the sources of the reflected lights in recent posts. Only the shoreline remains natural as it winds toward Main Street. Stores and parking lots are sometimes within a few feet of the shore.

Taken from the same spot, the shot below faces west. The millpond sweeps to the south a half mile from the dam at Main Street. Beyond the west shore, the backyards of houses along Second Street can be seen. Power lines mar sunset photos taken from this vantage point. Both photos show open water at this end of the pond. The majority of wintering ducks are here. In past years, this was frozen by now. The ice covering parts of the pond may recede this week. We expect rain and temperatures reaching 50 degrees. The third week in January is traditionally the coldest part of our winter but if won’t be this year. We don’t dare gloat. Winter can still hammer us in February and March as it did last year.

More city lights

January 14th, 2012 § 0

January 6: Here are two more shots of the ducks and swans at the north end of the Brighton millpond. Both are grainy due to the low light and extreme zoom, but they still have a nice feeling about them. The pond looks much different now because we’ve had our first snow and the temperatures are colder. I hope to visit the pond later today while there’s daylight so I can show you how the conditions have changed.

The city paints nature now

January 13th, 2012 § 3

January 6: We usually think nature is more beautiful than anything mankind can create, but that’s not always the case. The northern end of the Brighton millpond butts up to Grand River Avenue, a busy thoroughfare. Across the pond from the rustic millpond trail’s boardwalk is a parking lot for a restaurant and beyond that the huge garage for Belle Tire, hardly pastoral elements. But the fading twilight sky and lights from the surrounding businesses bring color to our monochrome winter world as they reflect off the open water and ice. The brightest light (below) comes from a car’s headlights as it leaves the parking lot. The greens and reds are from neon signs. Meanwhile, the ducks just stand on the ice and look at each other or swim in the limited open water.

Bubbles on bubbles

January 12th, 2012 § 2

More daily fluctuations of temperatures above and below freezing have created additional patterns in the millpond ice. Here, a series of frozen bubbles is above an even larger bubble, about 12″ long. The blurriness in this image is actually refracted light from within the ice; it’s not my fault THIS time. :-) Note how sharp the details within the smaller bubbles are. It looks like they are magnifying glasses, but it’s really just clearer within them because they are hollow. There really isn’t anything within this image except highlights, tiny glints from my camera’s flash; highlights, black ice, and air. That’s it.

Mystery tale of the missing tail

January 11th, 2012 § 2

I noticed a Mallard drake without any tail feathers at the Brighton millpond Tuesday evening. Pink areas of his skin are showing. He looks healthy, the rest of his feathers are in great shape, and he didn’t seem in any distress. It might be a malady of some kind causing him to pluck out his tail feathers or he might have encountered a predator and is lucky to be alive. There are foxes and coyotes in the area although I haven’t seen either near the millpond. A raccoon or opossum could also be the culprit. Turtles are out of the running since they have been in hibernation for months. If he can fly at all, I imagine his ability to control flight is limited without his rudder. Feathers can take several weeks to grow back so I hope he can stay warm through the winter.

Coupla friends stop by for dinner

January 10th, 2012 § 4

Taking a break from floating in the open water on the millpond, a couple of friends hop up to the sidewalk to say hello and get a few morsels of duck chow. Nothing special to say about their visit except these two ducks arrived at slightly different times. I sandwiched the two images together because I like the way the wings looked and they seem to complement each other.

Cosmic pond ice

January 9th, 2012 § 1

The patterns in the ice continue to fascinate me. I can’t remember another year where they have been so extraordinary. The almost-daily freezing and thawing surely creates them, but what is so astounding is how varied they are. They resemble images from the Hubble telescope, filled with distant stars and clouds of space dust.  The way the patterns unexpectingly mix together is also part of their mysteries. The large white area (top, center) is a bubble trapped below the black ice. Below, two more patterns are shown. These images all look better small. If you click through to the larger images, you’ll probably be disappointed. My ineptness coupled with the limitations of my camera produced very grainy pictures, but I still felt they are worthy of sharing because of what they record.

Skating muskrat on a canopic jar

January 7th, 2012 § 2

Warm weather has brought back open water in the Brighton millpond. The muskrats are taking full advantage of it by emerging from the water and searching the remaining ice for morsels to eat. Friends and I watched them from a distance (above) because muskrats are usually skittish.

I pushed my camera to its zoom limit to get the top image. The results aren’t great, but I like how the rodent is silhouetted in the orange-golden light reflecting on the pond ice from a street lamp. Using a little imagination, the full frame image (right) takes on the characteristic shape of an ancient Egyptian Canopic Jar with a well-weathered surface of gold tucked in a dark niche of a tomb. Yeah, it’s a stretch, but what the Hell …

After a band of noisy bmx bikers rode by and the muskrats didn’t even flinch, we moved closer. The muskrats tolerated our presence above them on the Tridge (below).

These photos of the critters show their long claws which help them scurry across the black ice. Ninety-five percent of their diet is vegetarian. They enjoy the chow as much as the ducks do. Both of these are obviously healthy and have fine fur coats to help them survive winter temperatures. Unlike chipmunks, they will remain active through the winter months although their activities will be under the ice so we won’t see them. At warmer times, they will be seen topside munching plant life they bring up from the bottom of the pond.

Windows in the water

January 7th, 2012 § 2

Most of the Brighton millpond is covered with ice but there’s open water at the north end and a small area near the dam due to the moving water. At dusk, I took these two shots near the falls of the reflections from internally illuminated windows in the Old Town Hall now called CoBACH Center.

The image below includes reflections of the Christmas lights on an old pine that grows within feet of the falls. This image is the first one I’ve taken using RAW format. I met another photographer earlier that day and he shamed me into doing it when I had to admit to him I’d never used those settings even though I’ve had them available on my camera for three years. The tonal range is far superior to the standard settings I use as you can see. I’ll probably use the format more often now although it takes considerably more disk space and is more time consuming to process. Thanks, Joe!

Winter Sunset

January 6th, 2012 § 5

In looking at the recent posts, I decided I needed to add a dash of color. The sun set over the Brighton millpond was tinted with orange, pink and red last evening. I’ll post more ice patterns later.

« Older Entries