OK, somebody has got to educate me on this one. This morning my husband, in an urgent tone, called me to the kitchen window to look at two birds alight on a big locust tree across our driveway.

Perhaps this is not an unusual sight, but it's one I have never seen before. There sits two wild ducks. We have a small pond, and across the road in this rural area are several large strip mine ponds, but basically those were ducks out of water. LOL.

They were somewhat marked alike, but one was much plainer than the other. I grab the binocs to make sure it's really duck we are talking about here, and could see the bill in clear detail. It was a duck's bill and not a bird's beak, rounded and slightly shoveled.

They were not really large, appeared to be smaller than a domestic duck. Greyish and one with what appeared to be black markings or nearly a solid black head, neck and breast area and white eye rings. Back and wings black over grey striped. The other mostly grey/black striped all over. Clumsy in their perching, obviously and more like sitting on large limbs as opposed to actually perching. What looked like the female flying around the tree close to the trunk, alighting briefly and then they both flew off.

I kept yelling to my husband to note details! He didn't. LOL. And having only seen them for a few seconds there, I can't tell you more. S.E. Appalachian Ohio.

Is this unusual? I have never seen a duck up a tree.