Honey has returned to me, and I hope she stays here at least until I leave for Poland. I have all that frozen corn and about 6 ounces of mealworms—that’s nearly 5000 of them—to dispose of.
She’s acting very skittish, and in response to my whistle this morning she emitted a series of quacks that went on for several minutes—something she’s not done before. And she stayed on her cement “duck island” and groomed herself rather than eating. I hope she’s ok and was sufficiently full that she didn’t need breakfast. Here she is with her resplendent blue speculum:
Or is it purple? In fact, depending on the angle, it can look either color:
Action shots of wing-flapping, ducking, butt-shaking, and grooming—necessitated by low light and a 1/30 second shutter speed:
And a video of grooming (I’m not sure why she keeps dipping her bill in the water, but some reader will surely enlighten me:
Honey shares the pond with big goldfish (I guess they’re “koi”), lots of red slider turtles, and some crawfish. She hates the goldfish, which tend to swarm under her as she swims, having learned that there’s food around where she is. She can tolerate the sliders though she gets startled when they touch her feet or belly.
The sliders love relaxing on the lily pads in the sun; like many reptiles, they use the sun to increase their body temperature since they’re cold-blooded (“poikilothermic”):
How many sliders do you see?
A lazy ol’ turtle catching some rays. It looks like he’s saying “this is my pad!”
Nice photos, Jerry.
Nice!
Looks like it’s time to install a “Turtle Island” like I’ve put in our pond! (We are version 2; version 1 has just about sunk.) I suppose the UofC Facilities folks would frown upon such modifications …
Is it blue? Is it purple?
Egad, these optical illusions always get me.
Time to get a passport for Honey.
Quite plausibly not an optical illusion. In both dinosaurs (including avian dinosaurs), non-dinosaurian “reptiles”, and several non-vertebrate groups, there are well-known “structural colours” which are produced by constructive (or destructive) interference on reflected & diffracted light from protein structures – which includes feathers. It is well within the bounds of possibility that the mallard (?) wing flash colour is a combination of reflection from a dye or pigment (the same in all directions) and a different “structural colour” seen from certain directions only. Which would result in a patch that changes apparent colour at different orientations.
If PCC(E) were to get a diffraction grating combined with a line-mask which could clip over his phone lens, there is at least a fighting chance of detecting the two hypothesised components.
(I must admit to having considered and rejected such toys for myself. Though with the question of fluorescence quantification arising again in a different forum, I do wonder if it’s worth trying.)
Nine sliders. That is pretty impressive!
Umm. Brain fade. Sliders are … something you use on a guitar fretboard, isn’t it?
It’s sort of periwinkle. So beautiful.
It’s bright.
It’s natural.
It probably means either “sex”, “poison”, or both.
Enjoyed photos. Thnx. Will be interesting to see who leaves the area first – Honey or PCC.
That’s a lot of turtles! Are they breeding there, or are they all ex-pets?
And what happens to them in the winter?
I’m pretty sure they bury themselves in the mud and cut their metabolism down to zero. When the spring comes, there are big sliders there, so they must have persisted over winter.
It must be pretty close to zero, because surely they can’t breathe like that? [Obviously I have learned nothing about biology even after years of following your website.]
If they have limited gas exchange (e.g., through nasal mucosa, or for that matter cloacal mucosa), then they don’t need to go down to “zero” metabolism.
Quod vide lungfish, which survive years as fish out of water.
10 +/-1 sliders. I’m hedging.
“Koi”, “sliders” and “crawfish” are rather nonspecific names. Someone should study and document the natural history of your marvelous pond. Like, how do the sliders survive a Chicago winter?
I was thinking too there must be a helluva food supply for have ‘turtles all the way down’.
Our lake back in Iowa was loaded with turtles of all kinds and the winters are similar to Chicago. They survive, I assume hibernate? The ice could be a foot thick sometimes.
Chemist’s rule of thumb : 10degC temperature drop is a factor of 2 in reaction rate. So dropping from 25C to 5C quarters oxygen demand.
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10. I see ten sliders. Thanks for sharing! No offense to Honey, but I love turtles😊
9 🐢’s.
WEIT membership feedback:
Thank you for the duck photos! They’ve been lots of fun. (And educational too. I learned about mail-order meal worms.)
Cheers,
Assuming that Honey does eventually fly off, if she does return next season, when would it be reasonable to expect that?
And I got nine sliders.
To the best of my knowledge we don’t have wild sliders in the UK but we do have imported terrapins, introduced during the Ninja craze. Owners dump them in the public ponds and water courses where, full grown, they terrorise the native water life, up to and including ducks. Big problem.
I share the startled feeling of sudden touch sensation during bathing! Though it is likely often air bubbles or swirls.
I cannot get that video to work. However I have seen what I believe to be the same basic behavior in other birds when bathing in water.
I have a hypothesis which is mine. It could be instinctive behavior to wash away parasites. (Or even drown them, in land birds.) Then again, I now seem to remember a discussion on this site about how much birds smell and taste!? If they do – and why should they not, it is protective – then getting rid of bad taste is a simpler explanation I guess. (And of course they could both be in play. Or none, I have not seen studies on this.)
She is a beautiful “blue winged Teal”..
From: Why Evolution Is True Reply-To: Why Evolution Is True Date: Friday, August 25, 2017 at 12:01 To: Subject: [New post] Update: Honey the duck (with bonus turtles)
whyevolutionistrue posted: “Honey has returned to me, and I hope she stays here at least until I leave for Poland. I have all that frozen corn and about 6 ounces of mealworms—that’s nearly 5000 of them—to dispose of. She’s acting very skittish, and in response to my whistle this “
No, actually she’s a mallard; the blue-winged teal is a different species in the same genus (Anas).
She is really beautiful. You did a good job, Dad!