Winning!

...In a duck trapping sense.  While trapping has still been slow numbers wise, we had a great week.  The first bonus was a new species.  On Tuesday we trapped two drake american wigeon, it was nice to finally trap something besides a mallard, a black duck, or a cross between the two.

On friday we started the morning with a "new" tactic for winter banding; shooting a large net over the birds (the rest of the crew used this tactic this summer, and it has been used to trap waterfowl for many years.) The net captured a handful of birds, including another new bird for us, a mallard-pintail hybrid! This bird was definitely more of mallard, but showed several characteristics of being partially pintail.

Friday's second high point was a trap full of black ducks which turned out to be more than we had ever caught in a single trap.  In total there were fourteen black ducks in the trap. Two were birds we banded last winter and one about a week ago, leaving eleven brand new black ducks. There were a few mallards in the trap too.

A couple more photos from the week:

Jay and I got out shed hunting again earlier in the week and found a few.

A Rhode Island relic. It looks like the can Quint finished in Jaws and dropped on the deck!

Some early morning green wings.

And finally a red tailed hawk who likes to hang out outside one of our duck traps.