Winter Ducks at the Great Salt Lake - II.

 

In winter the Great Salt Lake is a home for many different ducks.  It welcomes Green-winged Teals (above), Northern Pintails, Common Goldeneyes, Northern Shovelers, Mallards and others. 

Female Common Goldeneye is taking a flight.

To photograph ducks in flight is always challenging.  They take off from the water immediately, they are small and beat their wings fast.  But sometimes with a pinch of luck I am able to capture them in flight.

Female Common Goldeneye.  

Female has a chocolate brown head, gray back, wings and tail and a yellow tip on black bill.

Northern Shoveler. 

This duck was acting a little bit strange and at the beginning I thought that it was injured. 

The duck stayed motionless for a long time. Usually, when you approach a duck it swims away from you but this bird wasn't going to leave. 

Later I returned back to check on the duck and it was gone.

 

Ring-billed gull.  It decided to join the ducks but didn't stay with them and took off almost immediately after landing.

The Great Salt Lake is a unique place, it has a diverse ecosystem for migratory and breeding birds.

In 1843 the early explorer in the west John C. Fremont after visiting the Great Salt Lake wrote "the waterfowl made a noise like thunder… as the whole scene was animated with waterfowl."

It's different nowadays. The Great Salt Lake has changed drastically because of climate change and we probably never see the vast and impressive flocks of birds that Fremont did but there are still an incredible variety of waterfowl birds there.

Generally, life is good!