Ducks in a Row

I took an afternoon walk down by the Village of Worth canal area.  Here’s what I saw…

The ducks are in a row at the edge of the canal.  Or this could be called “duck dating.”  Once the water warms up there will be a little waterfall here.   In the foreground a swan is sleeping and in the left corner a gull is checking out the ducks.

The swans sipping some water.  Several swan pairs live in the area.

After sipping the water the swans settled down for another snooze.

The gulls were lined up, too, facing the wind.  I love seeing the gulls gliding through the blue sky on these cold winter days.  According to my bird book these seem to be ring-billed gulls.  My bird book also says they commute into the city of Chicago every day during early morning hours.  Is this true of these birds that already enjoy the canal waterfront here?

I was taking this walk by the water reclamation plant.  Once the weather warms up this will become a little lake.  Water from the water reclamation facility will pass through the lake on its way to the canal.  A lot of people come here to feed bread to the ducks, geese, and gulls.  There are no signs discouraging this, as there are at Lake Katherine.

I took a walk along the canal and was grateful that there was no ice on the sidewalk.  I was hoping to find birds here, but it was very quite in the middle of the afternoon.  Just tall bare trees and a big sky.

Back in our yard a female cardinal worked on a crabapple.

Tonight will be the first night in a long time that the temperatures will be above freezing.  I decided I finally had to dig in and try to lift the plastic on the low hoop.  The kale leaves inside all looked very yellow.  It look me about 10 minutes to loosen the ice enough to lift some of the plastic and open a crack for air.  Tomorrow the temperature is predicted to be 54 degrees Fahrenheit, so I would like to get a little more of the plastic rolled back if possible.