Waterfowl weekend pics

Well, I haven't chased birds in a couple weeks and Axl was not happy about it, so I hit the road Thursday afternoon for a long weekend.  Friday morning sucked.  I have a feeling someone has been using my secret spot.  Flushed birds out in the dark and they never came back.  I did shoot one mallard drake, but pretty slow morning. 

In the afternoon I decided I had better try to get a swan on the ground (or water, as the case may be).  I threw out a couple decoys and took a little nap on the shore.  Suddenly I am awakened by some noisy swans that have already entered the kill zone.  I wanted to shoot one locked up, but sleep screwed that one up.  I snapped a couple photos before deciding I might at well shoot one of these guys.

Two juveniles on the right side of the picture.

It was a good swan, but I have killed one bigger, so I will wait at least one more year for a mountable swan.

This guy sailed quite a ways, so I did the retrieving with the boat.  Not sure if Ax was happy or not with that decision. :D

Saturday was a better duck day as I went to a new location.  I picked up two readheads right away (limit is two) and so I was then waiting for a canvasback to make it a great "diver" day.  I did take a few mallards while I was waiting though. ;)

I finally gave up on the cans and shot this green-wing drake from a group of about a dozen birds.  Picking out drakes in a teal flight is not easy for me, so I was pretty happy with this sixth duck.

Thankfully I was back in the good graces on Axl.

Saturday night was a little rough, so I slept through a lot of birds this morning.  Flights were pretty poor and I only picked up 4 ducks, but they were all drakes and I passed on a few hens.  Guess you can't fill everyday. :D

Now that Ax is happy, I think next weekend will be doe hunt time. :D

Here are the local swans, the poor things were called black bellied tree ducks, now they call them black bellied whistling ducks, but the genetics show they are actually swans.
These are moving up from Mexico, first got to Texas about 1940, are now as far north as Dallas.
These were at my bird feeder last winter, have had as many as 15 at one time.

Edited by drinksgin

They make a very pretty mount, if you got the space.  Takes up about the size of a moose.  I've seen some nice corner mounts with the whistler (aka Tundra) having its wings way down, not perfectly natural but a nice corner of the room mount of a magnificent animal.

BEAR