AMB Class #9: Everything's Just Ducky - Part 1

Our class on November 4 is all about ducks.  Can I be honest?  We're just starting our fourth month of this program, and I'm feeling a little burnt out.  Yikes;  there are 9 more months to go, and a whole bunch more classes.  That's worrisome, on the surface.  But maybe it's normal:  the course is both front- and rear-loaded, with a few less busy months in the late fall and winter.  The truly crazy times are way out in the distance - June and July, where we're booked solid for nearly two months.  But anyway, back to the class at hand.....I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, and really not that excited about tonight's topic.  Ducks.  Really, this is one area where I think I'm in pretty good shape.  

And I'm about ready to learn how wrong I am.

Mallard (Male)
11/23/12
Bend, OR
Notice how the bill (yellow) and legs (orange) don't match

Our guest lecturer tonight is Skot Latona, a wildlife guru at South Platte Park in Denver.  It's appropriate, since the South Platte is a reliable place to see ducks year round, and especially in winter.  Our feathered friends are, in fact, arriving in huge numbers even as we speak.

Skot's presentation is titled "Anatomy of Anatidae".  Okay, I like words, so I give him points for cleverness.  "Anatidae" is the family of birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans, and it's the first new bit of information for the evening.  Not a complete waste of time.

Mallard (Female)
4/15/12
Boston, MA
See how the bill and legs are both orange?
Our AMB mentor Cynthia likes to say that
"SHE knows how to match her shoes & her purse."

Then Skot divides ducks into dabblers and divers.  Well, duh, who doesn't know that?  Then he goes on to share with us that dabbling ducks primarily eat vegetation and aquatic insects, and sit up high in the water;  their leg position gives them maneuverability versus power (diving ducks' legs are situated much further back on their bodies);  and the dabblers' longer wings give them greater accuracy.  Diving ducks eat mostly deeper vegetation and mollusks and crustaceans;  they sit lower in the water;  they have narrower, pointed wings; and they all (save Buffleheads) have to run along the surface of the water in order to take off.  Um, yeah, sure.  I knew all that.  Well, most of it.  Well, okay, um, a tiny bit.  Maybe it's a good thing I'm here tonight.

American Wigeon (male)
3/13/12
Ketring Lake, CO

American Wigeon (female)
3/13/12
Ketring Lake, CO

We dive into dabblers.  Okay, maybe we survey them on the surface.  We start with Mallards (white on both sides of the speculum, males have unmatching legs and bills), American Wigeons (the ducks that sound like squeaky toys), Northern Pintails (the most elegant of the dabblers, with their long thin necks), Gadwalls (the most underrated duck for beauty, IMHO), Northern Shovelers (a beginner's delight, so easy to identify with that big boat-shaped and boat-sized bill), and the teals:  Blue-winged, Green-winged, and Cinnamon.  Blue-winged and Cinnamon Teals also have large bills, not quite as big as a shoveler's, but bigger than the rest of the dabblers.  Oh, and that "unique" feature of a Mallard, to help with ID in flight, the thing about the white on both sides of the speculum?  Yeah, well good luck with that.  The Green-winged Teal also has white on both sides of the speculum.

Northern Pintails (female, male)
1/21/12
Barr Lake State Park, CO

I mean, really, it's so unfair.  Who makes this stuff up?

Gadwalls (female, male)
11/18/12
Wheat Ridge Greenbelt, CO

We get a quiz.  Easy-peasy.  I've got this down.  But the quiz is all males.  In breeding plumage.  So we get a new quiz.  Females.  Uh-oh.  Yikes.  Maybe I should pay REALLY close attention.

Northern Shoveler (male)
1/5/13
Wheat Ridge Greenbelt, CO

Northern Shoveler (female)
11/25/12
Green Valley Rec Center, CO

Common Goldeneye (male)
1/20/13
South Platte (Reynold's Landing), CO

We move on to diving ducks.  We cover Goldeneyes first.  Common Goldeneyes are, well, in Colorado, the most common of the goldeneyes.  Both Common and Barrow's Goldeneyes (the males, that is) have big round dots on their faces and - duh factor! - gold eyes.  Common Goldeneye's spots are round, and Barrow's are crescent-shaped.  Field guides will try to tell you that one has a head with a green sheen, and the other has a head with a purple sheen, but Skot tells us that this is fiction:  the sheen is a factor of the direction of the sun.  Damn.  I hate when easy tell-tale signs don't work.

Common Goldeneye (female)
1/20/13
South Platte (Reynold's Landing), CO

More divers:  Ring-necked Ducks and Scaups.  I still get these guys mixed up, but if I'm not getting better at differentiating the three different species (there are two species of Scaups in these parts, both Lesser and Greater), I'm at least getting better at pronouncing Scaup.  "Skawp".  Practice saying that over and over, and you, too, can then sneer at any fool who screws up and says "skowp".  Unless that fool happens to be me.

Back to divers.  Who knew there were so many?  There are also Canvasbacks and Redheads (easy for us novices to mix up - something I've done multiple times), and Ruddy Ducks (cutest little buggers you'll ever see), and Long-tailed Ducks, and Harlequins. Harlequins:  on my wish list, but not at all regular in Colorado.  

Redhead, Ring-necked Duck, Canvasback
11/25/12
Emerald Green, CO

But Long-tailed?  This is one of those things that tells me God has a sense of humor.  When I first truly discovered birds, it was Christmastime in Florida.  Oh, the abundance!  And the easy big wading birds!  Herons and egrets and storks and pelicans and cranes and spoonbills and any birders's heart's desire.  I came home to winter in Colorado - something I love - but not exactly the same birding experience.  Somehow, I found resources online, and in early January 2012 people were excitedly posting about this rare bird seen in a park near my home - Denver City Park:  A Long-tailed Duck. 

Barrow's Goldeneyes (male, female)
11/21/12
Smith Rock, OR

Now, I had no flippin' idea what a Long-tailed Duck looked like, but I determined to go see it.  And on a Sunday afternoon, I found myself at Duck Pond in City Park, and, oh my, what an assortment of ducks were there!  I had no idea so many different ducks existed.  I didn't know about dabblers versus divers.  I didn't know diddly.  I just knew I was seeing stuff that was new and amazing to me. I had a camera and a big lens, so I took photo after photo, knowing I'd have to figure it all out - if at all possible - when I got home.

So I got home, and combed through my photos.  There were tons of Goldeneyes, and I had quite the job figuring out the differences between the males and females.  Really, who makes this stuff up?  They don't look anything alike - at least to us humans.  And there were Buffleheads.  Whoa.  Cool.  Birds.  I was like a kid with a major sweet tooth in Candyland:  all this richness, and I was just getting started.  

Long-tailed Duck
1/15/12
Denver City Park

Then I saw a different duck.  Very different.  It was light colored and looked a little dirty, and there was just one.  But there it was, tucked away in my photos.  The Long-tailed Duck.  How easy was that?  An obsession had, perhaps, already been born.  But this pretty little oddball, easy to spot stand-out duck?  Well, that was the crack cocaine dealer standing by the side of the schoolyard, offering samples.

Long-tailed Duck
1/15/12
Denver City Park, CO

And I was hooked.