Making It Safely Across The Icy Fosdick Falls Bridge With Skunk Ducks

This morning's Winter Weather Advisory advised that one should use caution when crossing bridges and over passes due to icy conditions rendering driving dicey in North Texas, til the air is re-heated to above freezing.

With that warning in mind, today I very carefully made my way across the partially snow covered bridge over Fosdick Falls that leads to Fosdick Dam in Oakland Lake Park.

You can see, via the footprints in the snow, that mine were not the only feet to brace the freezing air for some aerobic stimulation and the resulting endorphins.

I ran into Miss Puerto Rico this morning. Miss Puerto Rico does not do well with snow and ice. When she first moved from her home island to the American mainland, Miss Puerto Rico went to college in Indiana.

Winter in Indiana was the first time Miss Puerto experienced a northern winter. Miss Puerto Rico moved to Texas, long ago, thinking that it does not get cold in the South.

When I moved to Texas I harbored the same delusion. To find myself in a minor state of shock, by my second week in Texas, when I experienced my first Ice Storm.

Changing the subject from the frigid Miss Puerto back to Fosdick Lake.

Fosdick Lake Skunk Ducks

Those are not penguins you see in the picture, those are a pair of what looked like Skunk Ducks, floating with the biggest duck flotilla I've ever seen in Fosdick Lake.

Most of the duck flotilla was on the west side of the lake, where they'd congregated to get bread.

I stopped to talk to the nice lady feeding the ducks. She was checking in every day on one of the ducks, due to the bird having a bad leg injury. The lady called the injured duck an Oriental Duck.

I have no idea if there is such a thing as an Oriental Duck. It's the duck that I've taken a picture of before, that I called a Lulubird Duck, because it looked like some sort of ugly mix between a duck and a turkey.

I always tell myself I must remember to bring duck food to Fosdick Lake, and then I always forget.

UPDATE: Noted local Ornithologist, Miss GG, has informed me that the pair of Skunk Ducks, in the above picture, are actually known as Bufflehead Ducks.