For me, March is a time for ducks. Yes, Mallards have been wheeling over my house all winter. There have been, what I think of as winter ducks—Common Mergansers, Common Goldeneyes, on open water. There have even been those ducks on the big open water of Lake Superior, such as Long-tailed, scoters and Harlequin ducks that think Minnesota is the south. It is in March, however, that the great movement of puddle ducks starts northward. According to the National Wildlife Federation, in a good year about six million Mallards, four million teal, Northern Shovelers, two million Ring-necked, Pintail, Redhead and Canvasbacks are born in the prairie pothole country from Kansas up into Alberta and Manitoba. That means a lot of ducks moving north. Luckily, they are easier to see as they huddle at the edges of open water, especially in the southern lakes of our region as the ice begins to go out.

I had my come-uppance on ducks many years ago when I was first starting to photograph birds. I had taken some print film in to be developed and when I picked it up, one of the young women at the lab starting raving about the beauty of one of the duck pictures. I was sure that she was talking about a Wood Duck, surely one of our gaudiest ducks. But no, what had excited her was a Mallard. It was the first time that she had really looked at the bird. She went on and on about its banana colored bill, orange legs and green head. I, of course, by that time was already taking Mallards for granted and had ceased to notice how beautiful they truly are. That taught me a valuable lesson. I vowed from then on to truly look at each bird as something special.

Read the rest of the Nancy's column in our March issue...