It’s Tuesday, and that means a wildlife video by Official Website Wildlife Cinematographer™ Tara Tanaka (her flickr page here, Vimeo channel here). And today we have one of my favorite birds, the wood duck (Aix sponsa)—a whole slew of them (or whatever the formal name is for a gaggle of ducks).
Just as a note on how much trouble it takes to do this: besides spending hours in the blind, Tara also took over twelve hours to edit this down to one and a half minutes of video.
This one’s called “a morning with my peeps”, and her notes follow:
This was shot over a few mornings – each of which began 40 minutes before sunrise in my blind, and shows a lot of the dynamics of Wood Ducks pairs and interaction between pairs.
The log is the center of their activity when they come in to feed – it’s one of the nicest “gifts” I’ve ever gotten. My husband and I were back in the woods of our swamp during the drought this past fall, and I spotted this log. I knew immediately that it was one that our Wood Ducks would love, but what I didn’t realize was how heavy it was. My husband hoisted it onto his shoulder and carried it back to the edge of the swamp for me. As the rains have returned and we have good water levels, I’ve had to move it to get it the right depth, and that’s when I realized how heavy it really is.
When you see more than one Wood Duck on the log, they’re a pair, unless they are at opposite ends, which seems to be just far enough for their comfort. Anytime one is on the log and another tries to get on it anywhere except the opposite end, the original “log occupier” goes after the “intruder.”
Very few people ever get to see how affectionate Wood Ducks are, not to mention the sense of humor that the hens have.
Be sure to go to full screen, click on HD, and push the “1060p” button for best results.
The Males are beautifully marked, do they mate for Life or are they indiscriminate in their affections.?
Hi Mike,
I don’t think they mate for life. Although they do accompany the hens for their twice-daily outings to feed when the hens are incubating, once the eggs hatch and the ducklings leave the box (in about 24 hours), the drake’s work is done. I recognize some of the drakes and hens from last year, but I don’t know if they are with the same mates.
That is outstanding…..
Thank you Randy!
Wonderful as always, Tara! Thanks!
Do you keep versions of your videos without the music? I was wondering how it would sound, all sped up, without the music? I do love the natural background sounds of birds, water, wind, etc. Would these all get ‘blurry’?
Oh, and now I know what water-logged *really* means. Any chance of procuring another log? The more the merrier? 😀
Hi SP,
I have all the original videos with the natural sound, but when you speed it up it sounds, well, silly. If you slow it down it sounds equally bad. The fast parts of this video are sped up 6x faster than normal, so you can imagine what they would sound like!
Ah, I thought so, Tara. Thanks for sharing your wonderful wizardry with us. Your place sounds like a bit of paradise, and the creatures are beautiful.
Thank you SP! I was very lucky as the day I decided to take a second camera out with me to do the time lapse I had the most ducks I’ve ever had in one morning.
Sub
Absolutely beautiful. I have seen only one wood duck pair, and so you are one lucky ducky.
Hi Mark,
Yes, and now the Great Egrets are arriving to display and start building their nests – I am very lucky indeed!
Beautiful.
Re: the expression for a group of ducks;
This link
http://lenichoir.org/collective-nouns/
says:
A safe – on land
A paddling, raft – on water
A dopping – when diving
A plump, team – in flight
Slew is the collective noun for dragons.
What a great link – thanks Fred! I’ve heard the term “raft” applied to a large, tight group of Coots before, all the others are new to me.
Excellent work, as always. I’m in awe of your dedication and hard work in getting it right.
Thanks Steve! It’s a labor of love to be sure.