{"id":40689,"date":"2025-12-19T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=40689"},"modified":"2025-12-19T02:24:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T07:24:26","slug":"estate-find-li","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2025\/12\/estate-find-li\/","title":{"rendered":"Estate Find LI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As we come to the penultimate Estate Find for the year, I have to admit that, while a few of them were punted or downright skipped, there was still a surprising amount of new finds, observations, behaviors, and so on. And here we add another new species, at least to me and to the blog<strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1147926744?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" title=\"Add another one to the visitor list\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><script src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/api\/player.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>My exposure to the varied duck species of North America has been fairly limited, and so I wasn&#8217;t in the habit of looking for the subtle differences displayed here until they became a little more obvious at that one point in the video. My go-to guide for avian identification has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sibleyguides.com\/about\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Sibley Guide to Birds<\/em><\/a>, which has easily been the best desk reference that I&#8217;ve ever had<strong>;<\/strong> it features not just male and female plumage differences, but juvenile to adult and seasonal as well, plus range and calls. Nonetheless, it remained a little inconclusive in this case since the illustrations didn&#8217;t fully display that color difference between the cheeks and crown, while at the same time they enhanced the body feather variations, which are normally quite muted. Luckily, I had a variety of images that I could refer to, such as this sequence<strong>:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/BlackDuckSequence.jpg\" alt=\"sequence of images of American black duck Anas rubripes and female mallard Anas platyrhynchos flapping wings in water\" width=\"750\" height=\"1608\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-40690\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/BlackDuckSequence.jpg 750w, https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/BlackDuckSequence-716x1536.jpg 716w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>The duck to be identified in the back, with a known female mallard in the front, both flapping their wings simultaneously in close proximity and thus allowing both comparison and a glimpse at feathers normally hidden. We see the black duck has no with banding alongside the deep blue secondary feathers on the wings, and has white underwings<strong>;<\/strong> no other species has these two traits together. Leg and bill color and relative size also helps, and finding more images of the species online, including at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allaboutbirds.org\/guide\/American_Black_Duck\" target=\"_blank\">CornellLabs&#8217;s All About Birds site<\/a>. That said, it is far, far easier to flip through the pages of the Sibley Guide to compare plumage among many species.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/BlackDuckPortrait1.jpg\" alt=\"profile of American black duck Anas rubripes swimming in backyard pond\" width=\"750\" height=\"584\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-40694\" \/><br clear=\"all\"\/>We&#8217;re curious to see what else might be showing up in the future. Neighbors down at the opposite end of The Bayou have seen hooded mergansers in the past, and I&#8217;ve seen a flotilla of North American ruddy ducks <a href=\"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2022\/11\/on-the-waterfront\/\" target=\"_blank\">not too far away<\/a>, though those are certainly more inclined to open water. We&#8217;ve got one more Estate Find to go, though this really isn&#8217;t setting any limit on what can be added, just what I can still feature within the year. We&#8217;ll see, won&#8217;t we?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As we come to the penultimate Estate Find for the year, I have to admit that, while a few of them were punted or downright skipped, there was still a surprising amount of new finds, observations, behaviors, and so on. And here we add another new species, at least to me and to the blog: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,3809],"tags":[4948,8426,2701,8427,2700,8428,8429,4947],"class_list":["post-40689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","category-photo","category-video","tag-aix-sponsa","tag-american-black-duck","tag-anas-platyrhynchos","tag-anas-rubripes","tag-mallard","tag-sibley-guide","tag-the-sibley-guide-to-birds","tag-wood-duck"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}