This week's show and tell isn't anything deep and profound. In the pond behind my MIL's house (man does it feel weird saying that instead of the in-laws' house), there is a group of ducks that live there. There are some mallards that live there and their is a group of white ducks that live there. And, there is one extremely unique duck. This duck looks like a cross (and probably is) between the generic white duckies and the mallards. Since you rarely see different species coexisting that closely, I find it extremely interesting that this duck has never been ostracized from the mallards.
15 comments:
That is an interesting duck
That's a cool looking duck!
He is a very unique little duck! Where we lived before we moved to our present location, our neighbors had a duck pond. We use to get ducky visitors and they would always take a morning constitutional around our back yard every morning around 6 am serenading us merrily! We would find duck eggs in our wood pile and our other neighbors with the pool had one ducky mama take up a nest poolside.
Your post brought back some memories that made me smile. Thank you!
Pretty neat! Do you guys feed the ducks? It used to be we could go feed the local ducks, but now I understand that you are not supposed to...(what a bummer)
Nothing like standing out from the crowd and being an individiual. We have a pair of wood ducks that turn up every spring, lay eggs and teach the ducklings to swim in our pool. We look forward to it, those baby ducks are just so funny.
Seems to have some of that Michael Jackson condition going on. Cool.
Thanks for the visit, too.
LOL...someone beat me to the punch about Michael Jackson...
Cool pictures, I love ducks and all birds. I also posted bird pictures for Show and Tell, funny. I hope you have a great day and Thank you for sharing, Martha
OOoO, Pretty duckie!
He kinda has the coloring of a cat!
Ducks are odd creatures. We don't live anywhere near water and one day one was just sitting under my DH's truck and sat there all day. Later that night he flew off. Maybe he was mad at his buddies so he thought he'd make them worry a bit before joining them again =)
Very cool duck. I lived in an apartment complex last year with ponds (and ducks) everywhere. There was a duck there very similar to this one that was a white and brown mix and I loved it. I never was able to get a very good picture of it though.
We had a duck like that at our local park! He was kind of moody and mean though, so we had to stay away from him while feeding the others. :)
Thanks for checking on me, so sweet of you to do so, while you're in the midst of grief with your own family...I'm hanging in there, returning in two days, u/s in three days, my vomiting has increased but in a crazy way that is somewhat reassuring, and in the meanwhile, I'm just praying super hard for two good heartbeats on Thursday! Thanks for thinking of me; I'll update on Thursday hopefully. :)
Very cool.
Interestingly enough, Pekin ducks (the white ones.. a domestic breed) are exactly the same genetically as mallards. Pekins are a breed of mallards just like the great dane is a breed of dog. People used selective breeding to get those traits. So it's not weird for the mallards. Also, if you see mallards that no longer migrate and exist in a more closed system with lots of inbreeding, you start to see more and more white on their bodies. They do not discriminate.
Most ducks can interbreed too even if they are different species. And we've so changed mallard behavior through feeding them and through changing their environment that they no longer "stick to their own." Furthermore, mallards are breeding with many rarer ducks, causing more problems. The Mottled duck is a great example in Florida. They are very similar with a few differences. The very big difference is that the male mottled never develops the male mallard prettiness (which the male mallard only develops for breeding), and scientists think that female mottleds are more attracted to the male mallard plumage.. thus making it harder for mottleds. This didn't used to be a problem since mallards would be up north during mottled breeding season, but now that so many of them dont' migrate (including released ducklings from homes), they are here and it is a problem.
How'd you like my essay on your post? haha. I can't resist. My profession is in animals.
To Battynurse: the white and brown duck was probably a Muscovy/Mallard cross. They look like that.
That is fascinating Barb...thanks for the info.
Rodney King was just speaking to the wrong species.
"Can't we all just get along?"
BTW, I got my pilgrim shell in Spain. I wish I could buy them here...
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