This has been a while in the making, as will become evident, but it worked.
Most of the pics are old, because I was trying to accomplish a few things first, and so we see a pair of the wood ducks (Aix sponsa) hanging out on the pond back when it was nearly frozen, during the sleet and freezing rain storm last month. We’d already been distributing corn for the Canada geese, which the ducks had also discovered, and so they were starting to make routine visits to feed. We’ll go in a little closer to see that it was still raining as I took this:
There was only one section of the upper pond that remained open water after the storm, but the ducks navigated through that to the edge and then simply climbed onto the ice to walk the rest of the way to the yard, though we were being helpful in throwing corn out onto the ice as well.
Here, the break in the terrain behind the male’s head marks the edge of land, with the frozen pond just beyond it, while I somehow got out far enough for a clear shot without spooking off the ducks, which has been exceptionally tricky.
Yet I was still having difficulty nailing sharp focus and achieving a decent portrait, not helped by the lower light levels slowing the shutter speed down. Meanwhile, the ducks soon developed the habit of descending on the yard en masse at least once a day, usually twice, with their numbers steadily growing as the word got out. Yet while the geese and mallards began getting habituated to us quite readily and would approach within a few meters, the wood ducks wanted nothing to do with humans and would fly off at the merest hint that we were out and about. Attempts to photograph them from an upstairs window were often thwarted by them hearing or seeing the window opening – they have both excellent vision and hearing. But there was no way that we could watch an entire flock of them coming way up into the backyard without finding some way of capturing this. And eventually, it worked out.
What’s funny is, I tried a couple of different remote security cameras aimed from a good location, but the nature of those is that the wider viewing angle defeats the resolution, and so you can tell there’s something there, but not see it too clearly. Worse, the motion sensing function of the better of the two still couldn’t trigger on the ducks; too small in the frame and not enough contrast. So that meant that we’d have to start recording manually when we actually saw them out there. But while we were still trying to do this successfully, I managed to sneak upstairs to the window that I’d left open and finally get the footage that I was after.
A pair has been seen a couple of times hanging out at the end of the pond where the nest box is – we think it’s the mellow pair that doesn’t spook as easily as the others. Now, we’ve already seen mating behavior from the mallards, but not yet from the wood ducks, so it’s not clear yet whether the nest box will be used this year – we’re holding our breaths.
Meanwhile, I fretted mildly, when moving away from the previous area, that I might have no opportunity to photograph the bald eagles like we’d been doing down at Jordan Lake, and while I have spotted a solitary example here, there hasn’t yet been any indication of regular activity. But if I have to replace them with waterfowl like this, especially right in the backyard, I can probably cope.
I’ve mentioned before, I’m not much of a songbird person, but there isn’t a lot else to photograph right now, and they were notably active around the pond. Most of them were reluctant to let me approach very closely, but I took what opportunities I could. Most of them were also trying their damnedest to remain within the thicket of branches at every opportunity, so nice portraits were difficult to obtain. 
Meanwhile, this Northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) absolutely refused to adopt a striking pose or even peek out from behind the branches, but it wasn’t until I downloaded the pics and had a nice close look that I realized this was because it was feeding on some diminutive unidentified berries. Like I said, the patches of snow on branches were virtually gone, so no opportunity for a nice composition with the red cardinal, blue sky, white snow, and perhaps deep green pine needles (about the only use they can be put to.) But at least the light angle was decent. That’s not really enough to save the image, is it? Fine – be that way.
