Whistling Ducks

It's been one thing after another for the past several weeks.  After enduring a very long, emotional week in connection with the horrific terrorist attack in Orlando, I wanted nothing more than to seek solitude last night.  And…I found it!  The week before the mass shooting, Tropical Storm Colin breezed by and dumped 10+ inches of rain in some parts of Sarasota.  Portions of Myakka River State Park are still flooded, and as a result, I pretty much had the place to myself.  The resident animals are seeking dry territory and their behavior seems a little out of sorts.  I spotted these two black-bellied whistling ducks sitting on a wood fence near the flooded river. They kept inching along the fence and looking down, as if they were disgusted by the smelly flood water -- and that was the last place they wanted to stick their little webbed feet. Hope everyone in the blogosphere has been doing well!

Hush!

Sometimes when I'm at the celery fields, I feel as though I've entered a different world where the birds are grappling with their own issues on how to get along with each other. For example, I'm convinced I captured this duck (after perusing my Birds of Florid field guide, I believe it's a mottled duck) as it was admonishing several sandhill cranes and a black-necked stilt to hush up. The stilt, a bird of rather small stature, was harassing the much larger cranes, which in turn were yelping, seemingly, for the stilt to stop pestering them. If you've never heard a sandhill crane, let me assure you, their call is extremely loud. At one point, with the three cranes and one stilt sounding off, it was nothing less than a cacophonous ornithological din. This duck was about 30 yards away, and the split second there was a pause in the commotion, it looked in that general direction and let out a few vociferous quacks, which I could only interpret as, "Hush! Puh-leeze! Is it too much to ask for peace and quiet at sunset? Sheeeesh."