Just passing through

[Today’s photos are taken in farmland, which is off-limits to walkers, so I can only get as close as the roads allow.]

It’s early April in Western Maine; it snowed again this morning, but didn’t settle. Patches of snow are still left in shaded spots, but undaunted the Sandhill Cranes are back in the muddy fields:

This pair were gleaning in last year’s corn field, for the remains of the feed corn crop:

when along came a small flock of Wood Ducks, in single file. The crane kept a careful eye on them:

but soon decided they could be allowed to share in the pickings:

Side by side they grazed, for some time. For me, this shows a new side of Wood Duck behavior. I normally see them on my beaver pond, and they rarely seem to go ashore, though last week this one settled down between two American Black Ducks. (The female Black Duck has an olive bill, and the male has a yellow bill):

Mostly, though, they cruise slowly around between the reeds:

A few days earlier the cranes had shown definite signs that spring was sprung, with the first flickering of their courtship dances, in which they leap a few feet into the air, and spread their wings. First one:

then two:

It’s hard not to share their joie de vivre.

The fields are a low-lying flood plain that is speckled with shallow temporary ponds at this time of year. These are a perfect stop-over for migrating waterfowl, and this year I saw three less common and especially handsome ones. These are Gadwall, which on some of the bird maps aren’t supposed to be in Maine at all, since they breed in the Great Plains and the Canadian prairies. The female is behind, the male in front:

The flash of white hints at a snowy wing-patch that is striking in flight. They didn’t ignore each other the whole time, here caught in a tete-a-tete.

My second handsome migratory visitors are these Blue-winged Teal (in the back), and the much more common Green-winged Teal in the front.)

The male Blue-wing has a striking head.

I also saw my first ever Snow Goose. It had joined a flight of six Canada Geese. They flew in, stayed for ten minutes on a pond very very far away, then took off again. Here they are in flight, the snow goose in the front leading the way.

If you are lucky enough to have seen vast flocks of ten thousand Snow Geese, you will be unimpressed, but I was thrilled. This map shows their migration routes, all well to the west of Maine.

The Canada Geese, however, are everywhere in the fields right now, in their hundreds, with more arriving all the time:

To end this migrant tale, a pair of Buffleheads on our beaver pond. Admire the iridescence on the male’s head:

which looks black unless the light catches it just so:

.