"I go and lie down where the wood drake 

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. 

I come into the peace of wild things 

who do not tax their lives with forethought 

of grief. I come into the presence of still water."

from The Peace of Wild Thing

by Wendell Berry

(trouble with font spacing today sorry)

Yesterday having run out of paint for the farm, we are redoing the outbuildings red with white trim, and having heard we were getting a storm today, one inch so far and no end in sight, we went bird watching. We headed out toward two historically Ukrainian/Canadian towns, Krydor and Hafford. More on these towns in a later post. One advantage to heading in this direction is the A&M

Bistro Bakery in Hafford. I am in no way associated with this enterprise, okay
(while in town we did purchase a ceramic rooster from people who professed to be their relatives at a yard sale, and we did have their cinnamon buns for breakfast) but my endorsement is based solely on merit.
http://www.bakeryinhaffordsk.ca/about/

The other reason for heading in this direction is a series of sloughs, we were hoping to see shorebirds and we learned last year birds here leave early.

We only saw one, shore bird. 

We did see some interesting ducks.

A Mallard? mom and brood.

One slough had both Redheads and Canvasbacks

hanging out together.

And we saw Ring-necked ducks at several sloughs

thanks Helen for the quick ID.

So it was a wonderful trip, we have not seen much less

photographed most of these duck species recently, and 

we still have cinnamon buns for tomorrow.

"From troubles of the world I turn to ducks,

Beautiful comical things

Sleeping or curled

Their heads beneath white wings

By water cool,

Or finding curious things

To eat in various mucks

Beneath the pool,"

from Ducks

by Frank W. Harvey