If You Melt It, They Will Come

The pond a week ago.  All of the ice is gone now.

The bufflehead (on left) and the green-winged teal.

Another view.

If you melt the ice the ducks will come that is.  Every year around this time we see migrating ducks land on the pond for a quick rest and pit stop.  Since our pond is rather small, it doesn't attract that many ducks, and I've never seen any particularly unusual ones.  Just the usual suspects of mergansers and mallards.  This morning however I awoke at dawn (closer to 8 o'clock really) to discover an odd assortment of waterfowl on our little body of water.  There was the usual pair of mating mallard.  But there were also two other ducks that I had a terrible time identifying.  After feverishly consulting all of my guides, I came to the conclusion that the other two were a male Bufflehead and a male Green-winged Teal.  This seemed rather odd to me as ducks usually travel in pairs or flocks of the same species.   I leave it to my readers to correct my identification after studying the photos.   I'm guessing these two fellows are just making the trip north together, kind of like weekend bikers, and will rejoin their own kind once they get to their Summer breeding grounds.  We've all noticed that some birds, like the Bufflehead,  have odd names, and you may have wondered where the name "bufflehead" comes from.  Some cursory research led to two possibilities.  "Bufflehead" used to mean dunderhead which is derived from the old Norse word "Tunder" which is where we got our word thunder.  So these ducks are called "Buffleheads" either because they were Thor's favorite duck or they tend to attract lightning.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.