DUCKS & WATERFOWL

RINGED TEAL PREENING

This sequence shows a pair of Ringed Teal preening in late autumn sunshine. The series of images shows the movements of both birds and the marked variations in the colouring of the male over a few minutes. At one stage the vivid green sheen of the wings gave way to dark blue. I was also trying to use the water behind them to create an impressionistic effect, which has worked in a way.

COOT FEET IN CLOSE-UP: GO COMPARE WITH A MOORHEN

My last post was a short video of coots at WWT Barnes feeding weed to their young, something I hadn’t seen before. Last weekend we had our 2-year old granddaughter to stay and took her to Ravenscourt Park (West London) to look at squirrels, ducks and a lot of manky feral pigeons. There were coots on a nest in the middle of the lake; and there were more strutting round on the grass. I don’t think I have ever bothered to notice the peculiarities of a coot’s foot before. To many people, myself included, a coot is mainly a moorhen with a white beak arrangement instead of a red one. So take a look at a foot comparison. Double-click for a detailed view, especially the close-up #3.

Here’s a Moorhen’s feet for comparison – completely different structurally

TUFTED DUCKS ON WIMBLEDON COMMON LAKE

A family walk, a new place to explore (notwithstanding that we’ve lived within 5 miles of it for 35 years… ), and a small point & shoot camera. I took advice from the youngest member of the party and snapped these tufted ducks. I was lucky with the light on the water. In the last one I happened to point the camera in the right place just as it surfaced from a dive. No wonder it looks a bit surprised…

COMB / KNOB-BILLED DUCKS (Sarkidiornis melanotos)

1. The male, with the characteristic prominent knob on its head

2. The female comb-duck. Both sexes have wonderfully coloured feathers, though the females are less bright

COMMON GOLDENEYE DUCKS

Photos taken on a bright November morning, with the sun high after a frosty night

A WHITE DUCKLING AND HIS ADOPTIVE FAMILY – OXFORDSHIRE

This duckling struggled to keep up with the rest of the family in a rain-swollen current. He soon got the hang of it and was able to lead the troop…

DUCKS – OR ARE THEY GEESE – WITH LARGE PINK FEET

MUSCOVY DUCKS – THE MATING GAME

This is going to be a bit awkward for me. And for you. We are all going to have to be very adult about this. If you are sensitive about discussing… intimacies, then look away now. Because we are going to have to confront the facts with courage and fortitude. Ducks have sex. Oh, you didn’t quite catch that? They have Sex. SEX. SEX. Let’s call it something less.. well, I think mating is the correct word, although given the fact that the female suffers total submersion during the proceedings, ‘ducking’ would not be wholly out of place…

Muscovy ducks turn out to be very interesting in this area. A quick piece of research about them unearthed this unbeatable wiki-nugget of anatidaean life: “Male Muscovy Ducks have spiralled penises which can become erect to 20 cm in one third of a second. Females have cloacas that spiral in the opposite direction to try to limit forced copulation by males”.

SPRINGTIME. I THINK IT’S TIME TO FIND MYSELF… A LADY FRIEND