There’s a Great Egret dead center in the above photo.

Great Egrets are infrequent visitors here at the Museum. I believe the last one that I saw here was in 2012 during the August heat. Most sightings are during the winter, however. The winter of 2011/2012 was busy with herons and egrets. A Great Egret and an “outsider” Great Blue Heron worried our local Great Blue to a frazzle for most of that winter until they nearly exhausted the supply of shiners that they were feeding on in the corners of the Wetlands.

Let’s hope the egret sticks around for a while.

Yesterday, I saw four Mallards in the Wetlands, two obvious Mutt mallards and two normal-plumaged mallards. Today there were fifteen mallards feeding in the shallow water of our Wetland! It looked as though the mallards were filtering seeds out from the water’s surface. But, I did notice some of them were tipping up so there must be something they were after on or near the bottom.

Although they feed on different items, the mergansers seemed to be sticking close to the mallards. Perhaps the feeding mallards’ actions were stirring up prey fish and tadpoles for the mergs.

What will show up next?