Male puddle ducks such as Mallards face a troubling dilemma every year: On the one hand, they’d like to stay in their nondescript eclipse plumage for as long as possible so they can hide from predators. Unfortunately, they would also like to find a mate before their rivals can snaffle all the most attractive females. The males who get into their spiffy breeding plumage early have the best chance to catch both the feminine and the eagle’s eye. Oy.

Our males at Montlake Fill are among nature’s more intrepid gallants and begin to molt into breeding plumage as early as October. Now that January is here, they are all lookin’ good. Many have already found their significant other and appear almost insufferably smug—until an eagle shows up and they beat a hasty retreat into the cattails. The remaining bachelors parade themselves in front of the drab females in hopes of getting lucky. It’s a drama you can watch anytime you stroll down to the water’s edge and search for emerald heads set against the backdrop of our silvery lake.

Here’s a poem for you today:

There is magic here in winter.
Leaden skies touch the lake at dawn
and turn the still waters into gleaming silver
set with emerald mallards.