Over at xenogere unseen, I’m kicking off a new series of photos called “Not so common any more” that will show you the common dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) in ways you probably have never seen it.
I hope you enjoy the show.
Monthly Archives: January 2008
March of the Muscovites
White Rock Lake boasts a thriving colony of Muscovy ducks (Cairina moschata). It also sports a diverse group of Muscovy hybrids (and mallard hybrids), but I’ll focus more on some of those in a later post.
Having grown up with Muscovy ducks, the species generally occupies a special place in my heart. Without fail, each time I see one I am flooded with fond memories of my childhood friends, of watching them grow up, of seeing how readily they became members of our family. They trusted us implicitly; we loved them without reservation.
So a thriving, feral Muscovy colony where I live provides more than just another animal species to see in its natural habitat; it also grants magical trips down Memory Lane.
A large Muscovy drake (male duck) appears to be the master of this domain. He far outsizes the other drakes, and certainly he dwarfs the females, not to mention a great many of the other bird species with which he lives.
I posted one photo of him at xenogere unseen, but here’s another as I caught him taking a bit of a stretch.
Not only impressive in size, he probably is considered quite a dashing drake, what with the spectacular salt-and-pepper coiffure, the pronounced caruncle, the beguiling brown eyes, and the multicolored beak.
He came ashore and approached to within a few yards (a few meters) of me. Unafraid and undaunted by the lumbering ape snapping photo after photo, he stood and watched me carefully as a much smaller female[1] scoured the shoreline for breakfast along with the American coots (Fulica americana).
The male intently remained between us, always standing guard and never turning away from me as she grabbed a bite to eat.
Several days later, I came across more of the colony loitering about the north end of the lake.
I particularly liked the brown one. While I’ve seen Muscovies ranging from iridescent green and black to mostly white with dark markings, a brown variation surprised and intrigued me. Regrettably, I never got a better image aside from this one as it was quite early and the dim morning light and strong winds made photography a wee bit difficult.
Finally, simply because I find him such an impressive beast, allow me to give you a shot demonstrating a bit of scale for the large drake seen earlier. Here he is amongst some American coots. For those who don’t know how large an American coot is, adults are approximately 16 inches (40 centimeters) long. For a simple comparison, they are generally larger than an American football (in length and circumference).
Quite large, eh? You should meet him in person. . .
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[1] There are those who undoubtedly will argue with me regarding the sex of the identified female in the third photo. Those who do will also undoubtedly fail to have the personal experience with this species that I have. Our ducks (see the first link in this post) both laid eggs, so they were obviously females. They were both Muscovy ducks. Finally, they both demonstrated the same limited facial balding and less pronounced caruncle that you see in the specified image in this post. Given the evidence, including the duck’s size, in addition to many years of personal interaction with this species, I feel confident that picture shows a female. If it is a male, the Muscovies I grew up with had to have been derelicts from some bizarre genetic experiment.
nathalie with an h’s Confessional
You’ve heard me speak of my friend Nathalie on many occasions.
She’s one of the Starbucks crew, the writhing mass of friendship that meets at our local coffee shop as often as possible so we can laugh, cry, talk, debate, and enjoy a profound comradeship shared by all.
She’s the young lass Rick and I tried to hook up with our friend Mark.
She had the unfortunate incident with a very dead bird mixed with some very expensive leather furniture.
She always wants to know how my writing is going.
She became infatuated with The Child while having dinner with him and Mark, Rick, and me.
I’ve known her for several years. Rick knows her. Jenny knows her. She’s part of my extended family here in Dallas.
So why do I mention her now?
First, something I’ve never disclosed: She’s a photographer. A very good photographer, I should add, as you’ll see if you peruse her portfolio.
Second, she now has a blog: nathalie with an h’s Confessional.
Her wit tickles me and her photography impresses me. I think you’ll feel the same.
Eyes open
Eyes open. This is the command I always follow in my wanderings through nature, through rurality, through urbanite mayhem, through the world at large. I never know what spectacle will be around the next tree or around the next building, let alone what could well be so small as to fit in the next footstep.
So I look.
Last weekend as I meandered about the lake with eyes open, an opportunity arose to see and photograph something I’d never seen before.
The northern pintail (Anas acuta) is a duck, but not an ordinary duck in the sense of being from one place or another, whether it be North America or Europe or Africa or—in essence—any single continent. Instead, this species occupies the entire northern hemisphere: all of North America and all of Eurasia. It can be found anywhere north of the equator.
This particular male happens to be wearing the breeding plumage, and being ready to mate offers a spectacular scene. With white stripes extending up the neck and down the beak, striking black vents, and long pointed tail, he certainly is a dashing dabbler.[1]
Having never before seen such a creature, I followed it along the shore as it swam with a mated pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos).
Called a gregarious species, something I found out only later when I had identified the little winged beast, it comes as no surprise that he spent a great deal of time with and amongst the mallards, American coots (Fulica americana), and other waterfowl.
I spent nearly an hour watching this fellow. He loitered about with his mallard cousins, and he came ashore several times giving me the opportunity to see they’re as agile on land as they are in water given their legs are more closely aligned with their center of gravity. I forgot about the camera entirely for a great deal of the encounter, lost wholly in the joy of seeing something new, of feeling that sense of profound discovery that so often comes with remembering a simple tenet: eyes open.
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[1] For those not familiar with the northern pintail, it is a species of dabbling duck, so called because such fowl upend on the water’s surface (leaving butts in the air). This allows them to graze beneath the surface. These ducks rarely dive. It’s of note that mallards are also dabbling ducks.
I grow weary of this game
I announced a few days ago a major change in site security. The intent was simple: Allow a broader range of access to multimedia files while blocking illegitimate uses.
The result? Frustration.
I originally modified the referrers and user agents that could access images and videos hoping to allow a larger swathe of news readers and other valid users. Instead, I found myself trying to manage a rapidly growing list of thieves. Within days I had an access control mechanism containing more than 1,000 idiots trying to steal my bandwidth and content, and similarly I found myself having to filter through massive log files every day just to keep that list up to date.
That’s simply too much for me to tackle just so I can offer content to those who need it while invalidating requests from those trying to steal it.
Needless to say, I’ve since put back the controls that allow access only to those I authorize.
So here’s how it stands: Multimedia content can only be accessed from my various sites and servers. Well, that and several search engines I can identify. If you’re using a news reader that now cannot display images from this site or my photoblog, contact me and I’ll try to add your specific service to the allowed list.
It’s just that I can’t keep up with all the useless, idiotic, asshole thieves in the world who focus on taking from others illegally and at cost to the content owners. It’s much easier for me to block en masse and address exceptions as needed/possible.