Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Birding Wood Lake Nature Center

I also spent a bit of time at Wood Lake Nature Center in the middle of June. Wood Lake is usually a good place to see waterfowl, especially during migration, and dragonflies. Wood Lake is fairly shallow and there is a good series of trails that run around the lake and a boardwalk trail that crosses the lake. The trails allow people to get good views of much of the lake and the wildlife which lives there.
While most ducks move on further to the north we usually get a population of mallards and wood ducks that hang around the area through out the summer. This pair of wood ducks was still in full breeding plumage in the middle of June. By the end of June they will have reverted back to their non-breeding plumage.
We typically get several members of the heron family around the Twin Cities area during the summer time. They include great blue heron, great egrets, black-crowned night herons and green herons, pictured above.

5 comments:

Lynne at Hasty Brook said...

THAT is the coolest green heron picture I've seen.

John B. said...

I like the green heron photo. It looks poised for action.

Leedra said...

Love the Green Heron.

Anonymous said...

That is a great shot of the
Green Heron. Nice shot of the
Wood Ducks too; however, I think
the back one is a non-breeding
plumaged male as shown in Sibley.
Hap in New Hope

ivars krafts said...

Great heron shot! It's how I see them in my mind's eye.