Winter Walk-off 2016

Each winter Les of A Tidewater Gardener hosts Winter Walk-off. in which he asks other posters to document a winter walk somewhere other than their own garden.

Each weekend after DH has tended to the horses, he takes a walk down to the creek. I don't usually go since I am usually spent by the weekend and it takes me all morning to get going. He would come back with tales of having seen wood ducks up close and flocks of turkey. Finally I thought, this is stupid. I am missing all of these opportunities to see what is arguably the most beautiful waterfowl on the face of the earth. So on March 1st I picked up my camera and headed down to the creek.

The trail to the creek is a loop, and if you bear left you come to the slough before the creek. The slough was created many years ago (before we moved here) by beavers damming drainage to the creek. Most of the large trees in the slough are water tupelo. The water appears brown due to tannins from fallen leaves,

although the water itself is crystal clear.

I walked to the edge of the slough to get a better look. When we spot wood ducks we usually see them here, although we've seen them in the creek too.

And score! There were two pairs of wood ducks on a branch spanning the slough. One pair flew off immediately but the other stayed, looking anxiously to see who or what was there.

I was able to get a few shots at the furthest range of my lens before they took off too.

Wood ducks usually pair up in January, months before the breeding season, but I thought I should look up when they start looking for nesting sites when I got back to the house. DH put up two wood duck houses in the slough last fall.

Thrilled that I had not only seen wood ducks but actually
gotten pictures of them, I continued down to the creek.

A lot of trees have fallen into the creek since we moved here. It's still beautiful on a clear day
when the sun sparkles on the water, but you couldn't easily canoe or kayak this stretch anymore.

The creek had recently overflowed its banks and the path was still underwater in several places.

Gene hadn't seen any turkey in a few weeks so I wasn't sure if they were still around on our farm. Turns out they are. Judging from the tracks a large flock had been through recently. In recent years wild turkey been nesting on our farm. Last year I saw a hen sitting on a nest right next to the main path between the floodway fields - I just happened to turn my head and there she was! Later on in the summer Gene saw a hen with 5 poults.

There were raccoon tracks everywhere too.

I hope you have enjoyed this winter's day walk. With the warm weather we've been having everything is a lot greener now!

When I got back to the house I read that wood ducks usually start searching for nesting sites in March. So we aren't going to go by the slough for a while in the hope that they will use the nest boxes.