Okay, listen – I already have the Estate Find post written for this week, that will appear in a few hours (thus the same day,) and it’s a little easier on my recordkeeping if I keep posts on the same day in both alphabetical and chronological order – that meant I had titles beginning with “A” through “Er” to work with. Plus I’ve gone all week with almost no posts, and had to throw something up. I don’t insist on stupid puns…
Anyway, from the guilt of not posting (and to have more of a buffer between the weekly subjects,) I offer this close portrait of a mallard that visits routinely:
At least, I believe it’s a mallard (Anas platyrynchos,) but the coloration is atypical, with plenty of grey scattered throughout its plumage. Birds don’t really “go grey” with age, or at least not that I’ve ever encountered (no schooling here, I just takes picchers,) and in fact, only a handful of mammals demonstrate aging in this manner, usually around the muzzle. Does this mean that my subject here is actually a crossbreed? It happens, more than occasionally, in fact, but as yet, I haven’t thought of a duck species that might produce this kind of coloration. The mallards got used to us throwing down corn quickly, so much so that they will trot up like domesticated fowl if we’re doing it when they’re nearby, and this one has been a steady visitor, occasionally appearing with his mate/girlfriend/mistress/sister/justfriend/whatever. In fact, this one got punked into flying up, since I saw him a little ways off on the pond as I was distributing corn and quacked at him; this was (to my great surprise) close enough to his lady friend’s voice that he immediately took flight and came right to me, pausing suddenly in midair as he realized I was right there, but then landing anyway as he realized, Oh, it’s the corn people. We’re still waiting to see if they bring ducklings along at some point, but it’s getting late in the season now.