northeast-flora-and-fauna

A couple days ago I showed a couple Painted Turtles basking above green waters ; today I'm showing Wood Ducks swimming through it. And similar to the Painted Turtle situation, it's at least possible the ducks would eat at least some of the green vegetation.  Though it's difficult for me to know exactly what the vegetation is comprised of, if there's duckweed out there, that's definitely on the Wood Duck menu. Though they'll eat small animals - mainly invertebrates - 80% of their omnivorous diet is comprised of plant material. Still, too much green in the water is usually a sign of fertilizer runoff that's polluting the waterway. This looks like a female (left) and male (right), though the male is without the more flamboyant breeding plumage in this picture. August 30, 2022 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 229848163, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here are a couple of ducks out of water, Wood Ducks specifically. The duck on the right looks slightly larger and has a prominent white eye ring that I'd expect to see in a female Wood Duck. The one on the left is smaller, has generally similar coloring, but lacks the white eye ring, all suggesting that this is a juvenile. As juveniles, the males and females look similar, though if it's a male it'll eventually look like this guy . July 27, 2021 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 148653864, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) You might wonder if they were standing on the log to avoid the icky green water. Though it's difficult to know what the ducks were thinking, if the green was duckweed , it's actually on their menu; they're omnivores that eat vegetarian about 80% of the time. And these other Wood Ducks had no issues with the water. July 27, 2021 at Washington Valley Reservoir Photo 148653891, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's a Wood Duck  and the ducklings she's caring for back in July. The adult is the larger duck on the right. Certainly the ducklings are much closer to their adult size than they were a couple months ago, as this post of another duck family shows. These guys may hang around here for the winter. NJ is an area where Wood Ducks can be seen all year round. Still, if the reservoir freezes, they probably won't be able to feed, and I'd expect them to move to open water (e.g. the Raritan River). Both male and female ducklings look similar, I'm not good enough to differentiate them at this age. Eventually the males will be one of our most colorful waterfowl though. This part of the reservoir is awfully green. (You might have thought the ducks were on a golf course, but they're in water.) Assuming this is mostly duckweed/watermeal (as opposed to algae) this is both good and bad: They're native plants that are high in protein, and a valuable food source for animal...