Mike in the Wild

I've written a few times about longing for the winter visitors that I'd normally see on my neighborhood birding trail by now.  Two years ago, I was excited to encounter my first wood duck - a male - on the lower pond at Granada Park.  While small, he was probably the prettiest of the winter waterfowl that migrate to or through this part of Arizona during the season.   Last year I encountered another one swimming on the Arizona Canal that divides my Biltmore community in half.  Like the individual from the previous year, he was in a group of mallards, and was standing out because of his diminutive size and bright plumage.  He didn't stick around that part of the waterway for long, and was the last wood duck I'd see until I got lucky again at Granada Park last week.  I probably pass near this urban recreation space daily on my various drives throughout the city.   In the winter, I like to stop by every ten days or so with my camera in case ...

Furtive and wary, every wood duck I've encountered in the wild unsurprisingly flees as I try to approach and photograph it.   So I was surprised when the lone male reported visiting Phoenix' central Grenada Park displayed none of this behavior. He initially blended in with the much more numerous mallards and ring-necked ducks that frequent the city park's lake, all begging for handouts by human visitors.  Clearly he wanted to remain unnoticed.   But when it was feeding time, he joined the commotion and rushed toward the hands that were tossing seeds at the waterfowl.  Up close, it was easy to see the crisp markings and bright colors for which he's famous.  Dropping his normally cautious behavior, maybe he was as hungry as the other ducks. Another surprising quality of this wood duck was that he was alone, without others of his species. And just as unexpected was that this bird's lake was not surrounded by the dense deciduous woods that normally com...