Today I visited Blair pond twice, once at 9:30am and once at 3:30pm. The hooded merganser, wood duck, and female pintail were all there, along with a great blue heron, belted kingfisher, and red-tailed hawk- plus the ubiquitous mallards. I also had something that looked darn near an american black duck, but it was on the other side of the pond and wasn't around (?) when I came back later with bread and binoculars (I normally make it a policy to not feed waterfowl, but couldn't resist throwing a few bits of whole-grain out today to get some photos- great results!)

I was surprised to see the pintail refusing bread, but the hoodie and wood duck vying greedily for it with the mallards. Does anyone have an explanation for this? I would have thought a mallards would have closer dietary preferences to other dabblers like pintails than to a diver like a hoodie.

Also, I've seen over a hundred wood ducks in my few years of birding, and that wood duck at Blair appeared to have slightly different proportions and color than others I've seen- except the one that was equally tame and feeding with mallards on the Charles River last winter. I may sound completley ridiculous, but I'd swear its the same bird (hunches are a bad habit of mine:) any thoughts on this?

Finally, if anyone has experience birding in Trinidad, please contact me- I'm visiting friends there in March and would love some advice on where to go, etc.

Thanks, and good birding-

Will Freedberg
Belmont
4mrfish@gmail.com

Links and club information at:
http://mrines.com/Birds/Arlington/

2008-11-09 Blair Pond wood duck	2008-11-09 Blair Pond wood duck
2008-11-09 Blair Pond wood duck	2008-11-09 Blair Pond wood duck
2008-11-09 Blair Pond Woody and Hoody	2008-11-09 Blair Pond Woody and Hoody
2008-08-21 Mt Auburn and Nahant	2008-10-14 Danehy Park