I’m more often a landscape photographer, but a few years ago I took this photo of a kea [Nestor notabilis] when stopped in a parking area at Otira Gorge in the South Island of New Zealand. I was actually taking photos of the gorge and the road that is built into the cliff when the bird landed just over a meter from me.
The kea is on the protective barrier to prevent vehicles going over the cliff. Just after I took the photo it hopped onto the wing mirror of the car, with an open window, less than arm’s reach from my wife.
These are really inquisitive birds, and this one apparently had absolutely no fear of humans.
Here are a few duck photos from my home patch in east Phoenix.
First up is a first-year drake Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata), showing the mandibular lamellae (along the cutting edge of his bill) which are an adaptation to his filter-feeding lifestyle. If the lamellae made you think immediately of baleen whales, you’re on exactly the right track.
[JAC: I’ve enlarged the bill so you can see the lamellae used for filter-feeding]:
This guy’s an adult drake Ring-necked Duck, Aythya collaris, showing his nictitating membrane. [JAC: See John Chardine’s photo-essay on nictitating membranes here.] These membranes occur in a variety of animals, and serve protective and maintenance functions, depending on the animal. Most bird photographers would probably throw this image away, but you may have noticed that I often shoot for didactic value; my significant other can use images like this one in the classroom sessions of her birding classes. European and Asian readers will have noticed this duck’s similarity to their own Tufted Duck, A. fuligula.
When someone wants to take up birding, I usually try to get them started with ducks. They’re beautiful, there’s usually a respectable variety at any given location, and most of them just sit out in the open while an inexperienced observer flips through the field guide to make identifications. Sad to say, most new birders want to start with raptorial birds, which are much much harder to find, and a lot more difficult to identify once you do find one.
Speaking of their cool names, here’s one that’s both a whistling-duck and a fulvous duck: a Fulvous Whistling-Duck (Dendrocygna bicolor). These are very rare in my area nowadays, so this guy at a Scottsdale Park a few years ago attracted a lot of attention. Being certain that a vagrant waterfowl is really wild is always a little dicey because they’re popular in avian collections. Keepers are supposed to mark their birds with bands (Europeans call them ‘rings’), web-tags, or by removing a hallux (rear toe), but they don’t always do that. This individual showed none of these signs, and our Arizona rare bird committee ultimately deemed it a truly wild bird. Being the only Fulvous in the area, it eventually took up with a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, and for several months thereafter the ‘Odd Couple,’ as they became known, turned up all over Scottsdale.
And here’s a Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (D. autumnalis) from the same location, but some years later.
This is a Little Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax melanoleucos) in the Tumut River, Brungle, NSW. [JAC: It’s also called the “little shag.”]
Tim’s note on the cormorant poem:
The “common cormorant or shag” poem belongs to the canon of nonsense poetry in the tradition of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll. I grew up with my father announcing these poems to me in a loud voice as we went to pick up my mother from late night lectures at the University of Queensland. Strange things we remember from our childhood.
The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.(Christopher Isherwood, 1959)
I will refrain from calling these photos “awesome”. But they are totally cool, man!
+1 – the cormorant is shagadelic!
Yes, we’ve been deprived of some of our workhorse adjectives. Can we refer to these pictures, especially the one of the kea, as “da bomb”?
It’s a promising start to Tuesday, PCC. You’ve successfully demonstrated what awesome really looks like. I’m blown away by the many talents of the readers here. The birds are gorgeous.
(The lamellae looks like the edge of my mat. And I wonder how the babies of the Fulvuous and the Black bellied will look.)
*Fulvous*
Nice pics! Last one is an Australasian darter (relative to the anhinga That occurs in south Florida and New World Tropics.) Here’s a link to one I found on google images https://www.flickr.com/photos/biogeo99/3709180253/
You beat me to it!
Beat me too! I do love anhingas and darters.
I noticed that the wiki link given in the post to the cormorant didn’t look like the picture. Is a darter related or another form of cormorant? I see the cormorant at the flickr link if you move over to the right a few photos.
Darters are closely related to cormorants, in fact their sister group, though gannets and boobies are almost as close, and some genes put them closer.
But they’re in different genera: darters in Anhinga, cormorants in Phalacrocorax.
I thought that last one looked very similar to an anhinga. The shape, and in particular the posture are pretty much identical.
Same genus, Anhinga. There are four species: American anhinga, Australasian darter, Indian darter, and African darter. And they’re all pretty much the same, with minor differences in plumage.
Thank You.
The Kea has some strength too. “The kea is on the protective barrier to prevent vehicles going over the cliff.” I had no idea that he could stop a vehicle. (Sorry, it’s the language police that made me do it).
It’s a gorgeous pic though, and the strength of those beaks IS legendary!
Nice to look at the birds while waiting for my doctor. Why are they so slow?
I really love keas!
Good stuff, everybody, as usual!
b&
“I, kea – the memoirs of a furniture de-montage specialist.”
[I just realized re yesterday’s discussion on “amazing”, “awesome”, et cetera, that if future words step up to replace “devalued” one, there could be an analog to ecological niches for memes.]
I am now shopping for a nice digital camera body to go with my pile of good Canon lenses that I had inherited from my father. Besides close-up photography of insects (of course!) I intend to try my hand at stalking megafauna. Ducks would be a likely subject.
Terrific photos and commentary today, thanks all.
I never knew that some ducks had lamellae; what a cool feature. What do these ducks filter out …algae, insects, hot dog buns?
Their favored food seems to be small invertebrates which hang from the surface film.
Thanks for the info.
They’re a kick to watch when they’re “shoveling” around the pond. Here’s a poor video I took a couple years ago of several shovelers that had suddenly loosely organized themselves and started circling around in a frenzy.
The males are the white bodied ones with the big brown patch on the side, the females plain brown (but with a nice feather pattern). (I believe Pete’s shoveler is also a male, just in eclipse plumage.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb83E7OiiQw
Oh, splendid pictures!
I’ve always considered the gadwall, with its understated colors and patterns, one of the most beautiful waterfowl.
That kea shot is so sharp one can study the wear on the feather edges and the scales of the feet. Not to mention the zygodactyl toe arrangement. (Which may be called something different now, but I’m old-school.)
Agreed on the Gadwall. You have to be very close to fully appreciate those intricate markings. Unfortunately, around here they’re pretty shy.
Yet you still managed to take a gorgeous picture of one. 🙂
Thank you, Diane!
In Perth, Western Australia there is a pub on the river called ‘The Lucky Shag’.
It is supposed to be in reference to the cormorants that can be seen on the river.
I also suspect it is because the word ‘shag’ in the UK means to have sex.
The pub is the local for the ‘Barmy Army’ which are the English supporters of the English cricket team when they come to Oz to play in Perth.
Black-bellied Whistling Ducks are year-round residents here, and a common sight on rooftops, in trees, or in detention ponds (when there’s water) around my suburban neighborhood. As I was walking my d*gs last evening just after sunset, 20-30 whistling ducks flew westward overhead, presumably towards nearby lakes and ponds to feed. The ducks look quite dignified when they’re in trees or on water, but their feet make such comical slapping and thumping noises when they’re walking around on rooftops, that it’s difficult not to laugh.