A fantastic kayak trip in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire is on the Connecticut River between the boat landing in Wilder, VT and Mink Brook in Hanover.
I paddled around the islands just below Mink Brook since it is usually a good place to see ducks. Sure enough I spotted a large group of more than a dozen ducks. They were a bit skittish at first and hid in the brush when I first paddled by. I decided to paddle around the island once more while paddling and drifting at an extreamly slow rate. Well, it paid off and I spotted the whole group in a small cove.
Due to the green coloring on the head, I’m pretty sure theses are Mallard Ducks. I visited the Website All About Birds to confirm my identification. The Mallard ID page says, “Male Mallards have a dark, iridescent-green head and bright yellow bill.” and that “Females and juveniles are mottled brown with orange-and-brown bills.”
It looks like many of these birds are juveniles since I can see the green head feathers growing in on some of them.
The All About Bids Website also describes adult mails as having a gray body “sandwiched between a brown breast and black rear.” I can see the middle bird in the photo above is part way through the color change with most of the green head feathers grown in and the body feathers changing from mottled brown to gray.
I paddled into Mink Brook to look for more ducks. Sure enough, there were a few families in there but most were skittish and kept there distance from me. There were a few that stayed calm as a drifted around in the coves.
I was able to get a pretty good water reflection shot of the duck in the photo above.
The Digital Gallery Blog 
You must be logged in to post a comment.