I went to William Land Park again after work.  I’d thought of going up to the Cosumnes Preserve, but I’m low on gas and can’t afford to fill up until tomorrow… so I stuck with the nearby park. I saw all the usual suspects: crows, ducks, geese, some gulls, an egret…  But there were four cormorants there today: two adults and two juveniles.   The juvies are lighter in coloring than the adults, and look like pale snakes when they lift their head and long necks out of the water… I got one shot of one of the juveniles “gaping” – showing of the bright blue inside of its mouth…

Two of the Canada Geese have gotten very bold and walked right up to me to inspect my camera bag for food.  They’d never done that before.  One both approached and hissed, so I figured he was pretty confused about pond-side etiquette…  There were four pairs of Wood Ducks on the island in the middle of the pond.  It looks like they’ve taken over the side that has the duck box on it.  It would be neat to have them breeding in the park, but there are so many people that visit it I’m worried that people won’t leave the boxes alone…

Along with the Wood Ducks on the island there were two Scrub Jays nattering at each other.  I also spotted a couple of turtles swimming around with their heads just above the surface of the water… Lots of Ring-Billed gulls hanging around…

I got some video of the Muscovy Ducks head-bobbing at each other.  Two big males were vying for the attention of a smaller female… and then everyone seemed to get bored at the same time and they all went their own way.  Head-bobbing in the water is usually part of a mating dance, but head-bobbing on land can also be associated with “familiarity” – like the ducks are greeting and high-fiving one another.  Muscovy Ducks don’t quack very often, so in the video everyone is just kind of huffing and breathing at one another.  It’s so funny to watch.

Just as I was starting to leave the park, I noticed a thin black “cloud” near the top of one of the fir trees on the island in the middle of the pond.  I thought at first something was burning up there and I was seeing smoke, but then as I watched it I realized I was seeing a cloud of insects.  They were too small and too far away for me to identify them, but there must’ve been a thousand of them moving in the air like a murmuration of Starlings – only on a tiny scale.  Do mosquitoes swarm like that?

I was at the park for about 90 minutes and then headed home.  When I parked in front of the house, I noticed there was a Cedar Waxing and some Robins sitting in a tress across the street, so I took some photos of them before getting out of the car.  Me sitting in the car parked at the curb with a telephoto lens hanging out of the half-opened window: I wonder what our nosey neighbors thought of that?  Hah!