Those ducks I mentioned yesterday, yes they were still there. I had initially id’ed them as mandarin ducks, but it seemed like such an exotic alternative that I was sure I was mistaken. But there’s no mistaking now, we have freakin’ mandarin ducks in Loos! I don’t know how rare they are, but rare enough not be included in my ”Nordens fåglar” bird guide. It sounds so outlandish that I thought maybe they are somebody’s pet ducks, but nobody I’ve asked knows anyone who would keep mandarin ducks so for whatever reason these two guys have decided to settle in our little pond.  Then I checked Wikipedia and found out that mandarin ducks are comfortable with the Swedish climate so some have escaped from the places where they were initially introduced and they’ve even nested in Jämtland. But these two don’t have any girlfriends hanging around, so I hope they will stick around a bit longer and I get a chance to photograph them in a bit better conditions than today, maybe even catch them in the water because the shoreline is less than photogenic. But as far as the ID goes, this will do.

The birds don’t seem too bothered about people, but I definitely don’t want to scare them off so I settled when I got this close (with the 300mm lens). I wish the native Swedish birds were as approachable!