February 15th, 2022

Brightwood Park is a unique place.  I have been going to the park almost every day since 2020.  No matter what time of day I visit, I always find something new.  Even objects that I have previously seen  are like dancers on a stage performing anew.  

While the big pond was populated with a large number of Canadian geese on a recent visit, I noticed two distinct creatures swimming around in the water, a bufflehead duck and a common merganser.  Although being morphologically quite different, they appeared as a couple.  Cross-breeding among different duck species is not uncommon.  These ducks love to dive into the water and can stay in the water up to 30 seconds each time.  When they surfaced a distance away from where they dove down, they surprised not only me but also seemed to bring a pleasant surprise to each other.  Both ducks are pretty.  The male bufflehead duck was muscular and clothed with a stylish outfit of bright white and shiny colors.  The female merganser had brown-color hair with a style that looked like flying scarfs of a lady sitting in a convertible sports car.  The feathers on her body were like a windbreaker in light blue-gray color.  Her eyes and face were expressive, and her bill seemed freshly rubbed by a lipstick.  While walking, the appearance and posture reminded me of ladies in beauty pageants.  No wonder the male was attracted to her.

The woods was turned into a concert hall by birds singing and making sounds in rhythm.  The leading birds were male and female downy woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatch, and robins.