Photo by Chris Bosak
A Wood Duck hangs out with a flock of Mallards at Wood’s Pond in Norwalk, Dec. 2014.

Several years ago (10 maybe), during a visit to Central Park in New York City, I noticed a very tame male Wood Duck hanging out with a flock of Mallards. I’ve spent hours upon hours on remote New England ponds trying to get decent photographs of Wood Ducks and here was one acting like it was a tame Mallards. The behavior struck me as odd because Wood Ducks, in all my previous observations, are usually extremely wary.

I had pretty much forgotten about this sighting until the other day when I visited Wood’s Pond in Norwalk, Conn., a frequent haunt of mine. A lingering Great Blue Heron

(click “continue reading” for another photo of the female Wood Duck)

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