I'm seeing a lot of birds paired up in southern wisconsin. The pond behind the house has hosted a few pairs of woodies, a few stray bufflehead, several pairs of mallards and a few geese in the last few weeks. You are right about the plumage this time of year, the woodies especially are decked out.

We've been noticing a lot of white pelicans in the last year, both in the fall migration and now returning during the spring. They've been on the river behind my folks place, and also on many of the area lakes. This is a new thing for us in Wisconsin. What's the deal there? I heard they usually travel the central flyway but for some reason have shifted east recently.

Also saw an osprey and a couple of bald eagles patrolling the river last Sunday. I had to look up the osprey, because I wasn't sure if it was a falcon, hawk or otherwise when I saw it. Whatbird.com has a cool ID site for birds with call sounds. I was able to match him with the call sound and some of the plumage markings.

We have a wood duck pair nesting on our property. The funny thing about it is their nest is a good 800 to 1,000 yards from any water. There is no water in sight of the nesting area. Those ducklings are gonna be awfully confused!

I was waking a river edge this weekend and just about stepped on a mallard hen. It flew up like a grouse right under my feet. It was pretty neat to see how well hidden the nest was and how tight the duck sat. She only flew a few yards away into the river and started to quack at me. I didn't realize that duck eggs were so big.

I wish the birds in Wisconsin looked like they do in the spring. So many of our fall birds are still mottled. When we see them in spring they are stunning. That is one of the advanatages of hunting in the south.