16 October 2021

Mandarin duck


Because we like to end the blogging day with an interesting photo.  Via.
Photo credit to Kjetil Salomonsen, a birder from Bergen (Norway).

This little Mandarin duck was the attraction of the month here in Bergen, mostly because he is a juvenile that was spotted alone in a small pond with still his immature plumage on. Between early October and last weekend, people have gone there often and were able to see the progression of his colors from immature to a vibrant grown male.

For reference, here is the same individual that I captured about 10 days prior, look at the difference in colors not even two weeks can make!

Reposted to add this photo of another Mandarin duck (via): 

3 comments:

  1. Here's what I don't get.

    In most of nature, but particularly with regard to birds, the males are the showy animals and the females are drab and plain.

    In humans, it's the opposite.

    Why?

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  2. :-) when god finished making the ducks, there were some left over feathers of all different colors: 'oh, what the heck. let's use those up and make one more.'. :-)

    I-)

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  3. When you think about humans (or most mammals) compared to ducks, we're really not showy at all. And it we think about visibly showy aspects of humans, especially ones that don't have an obvious biological purpose, then beards are pretty showy.

    If you're thinking of human breasts as showy, then you may want to rethink a bit: they're pretty much filling a biological purpose.

    Where we humans do "showy" is in adding: color, physical enhancement, fancy cars, etc. We have nothing on ducks, at any rate.

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