Last Thursday morning I was driving to town because Mickey Donahoo and I were having early softball practice and glancing over to my left, in a small roadside stock tank, swimming around were two ducks, a widgeon drake and a hen.  They are mid sized, puddle ducks, good table fare and these two sat still long enough for me to get this “shot”.

Thinking to myself, maybe all of the big ducks haven’t gone back north yet, so I made arrangements to go Friday on a “Picture Safari” to a large ranch here in Mills County.  My objective was to scout a number of small stock tanks and one 40 acre, lake to try and get a few up close pictures of some ducks.

Slowly driving around the ranch, the scenery was picturesque, the views seemed to go on forever, but there was one problem, no ducks!  My guess was that last weeks unseasonably warm weather had sent them flying back to more northern climes.  However, all wasn’t lost, I saw a lot of deer, no horns of course, because they’ve already shed them, but I did see two groups of turkeys!

Along a ridge line, one group was all hens and once they saw my truck, they hightailed it out of there.  The other group was toms, two strutters among ‘em, but both groups were too far for a pic.  Same for a bobcat that wasn’t expecting the truck to come creeping around a corner, but like a flash, it was long gone into the thick stuff!

On State Highway 16, driving back home, before I turned right on to my County road, I glanced over toward the small, roadside stock tank and swimming around were 5 ducks, that turned out to be 2 widgeon drakes and 3 hens.  One of the drakes was eying me suspiciously, but I bet that within a week, they’ll be long gone outa’ here too.