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| Welcome to my ducks page! This page is dedicated to my little feathered friends, ducks, and other water birds. They have become my recent hobby, and because I know a lot about them, I thought I might aswell give them their own page on my site. I'm afraid I've been boring, and only put links to the pictures, but some of them were very big, which would make the page difficult to load, and they wouldn't really fit either. Please take a look at the pictures though, because ducks are cute, and very interesting. There are so many ducks in the world, but these are some of my favourites. |
| Mallard Duck Male Female Everyone will recognise the Mallard duck, because it's the most common duck in Europe. You can see them just about anywhere where you find lakes, streams and rivers. Mallard ducks are very interesting, because they have a wide range of calls which mean different things. For example, the females have their own special call for when they're distressed, so it's like their own duck language. Male Mallard ducks go through a stage called 'eclipse' where they lose their flight feathers and their lovely metallic green colour on their heads. Females also lose their flight feathers, but their colour stays the same. It's like a kind of malting, so that they can grow fresh, new feathers. During this 'eclipse' stage, the male Mallards look incredibly similar to the females, so much so that you can barely tell them apart. This is because the males need extra camoflage because they can't fly away from danger. No flight feathers and a metallic green head wouldn't do them any favours. This 'eclipse plumage' lasts about four weeks, but it depends on the individual bird, and is normally in the summer months. Tufted duck Male Female You can spot a Tufted duck, because they're just really cute. And, they have a distinct tuft on their head, hence the name Tufted duck. It looks like a little pony tail. They also have bright yellow eyes, which makes them look like aliens! The female colours more boring as always, and are browny coloured, without the white patches on their wings and stomach. Tufted ducks are part of the 'diving ducks' family, because they swim under the water to look for food, unlike Mallards, who just put their heads in. Other ducks in this family are the Ruddy duck and Goldeneye, as well as many others. Tufted ducks are becoming quite common in this country, but you won't see them at all lakes and rivers. Radjah Shelduck Sexes alike Radjah Shelducks don't come from this country, but they're one of my favourite ducks, so I thought I'd put them on here. Radjah Shelducks are part of the Shelduck family, a long with the Common Shelduck, the Ruddy Shelduck, and Paradise Shelduck (I've never seen one of those.) I really like Radjah Shelducks because they always look like they've just been in massive fight, hehe. Male and female Radjah Shelducks are alike in appearence. Eider Male Female Eider are weird ducks, in fact they don't really look like ducks at all. Rather, slightly mutated ducks. You can spot an Eider because it has a strange shaped beak, and during spring/summer the males make the funniest noise. It's quite hard to explain, but it's like a kind of 'oooOOOOooo', and sounds like an old granny when she's just heard some gossip or something, a bit like 'oooOOOOOoooo, Deidre!' or 'oooOOOOooo, Matron!' It's weird! Eiders are cool though, and they live in the sea near to coast, so if you ever go to the seaside, look out for Eiders! I saw them in Scotland a year ago, all bobbing along together. |
| Please tell me if any of the links are broken! |
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