From time to time my wife claims that I can be obsessive, but I don’t know what she’s talking about. On a completely unrelated subject, I’ve been to the Chattanooga Riverwalk at least 5 times in the past couple of weeks. On Mondays I have the privilege of spending the afternoon with two of my home-school grandsons, Chase and Jeff, so this week we walked a couple of miles of the Chattanooga Riverwalk, and then on Tuesday Cindy and I visited the pond next to the Curtain Pole Road parking area of the Riverwalk. They were a good two days for our birding – we were able to photograph three lifers we’ve seen during these couple of weeks of walking the Riverwalk. Here are some photos; the Gadwalls and Mergansers are from the pond next to Curtain Pole Road, and the Green-winged Teal was on the pond at Amnicola Marsh.
The Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus) is pretty shy. This is typical of how it positioned itself.
With patience we were able to catch the male merganser crossing some open water.
The females generally followed the male around.
On this particular day there were a large number of Gadwalls (Anas strepera) on this pond.
My wife and I really appreciated the muted beauty of the male Gadwall.
The pattern of the female Gadwall is also quite lovely. We concluded we like the looks of the Gadwalls better than their cousins the Mallards.
And finally, over on the Amnicola Marsh pond I saw my first Green-winged Teal (Anas crecca)