Muddy Pekins

Muddy white ducks. If you zoom in, you can see the blue eyes.

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A bit past peak

The last flame of autumn:

(I don’t know why he went into eclipse! He’s too young!)

Bobcat track. You’ve already seen the bobcat, though:

Quaking aspens against a blue sky:

Wild turkeys trying to hide:

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From a little baby to a big duck

And 18 weeks later:

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95 percent a man

He’s almost done growing in his adult breeding plumage:

And he has discovered his purpose in life, nailing two pekin hens within five minutes:

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Getting pretty

The surviving Rouen drake is starting to look very dapper.

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Greenface

Rouen drake, 15 weeks old:

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Pond foragers

Getting to be big ducks now.

Source.

Look at that drake plumage! He’s 13 weeks old, and it’s coming in strong.

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Boys to men

The two Rouen drakes are now growing in their adult plumage now. I can see some green feathers on their heads now. It won’t be long before they are full greenheads. Their gray penciled feathers are coming in, and their breasts are now a chestnut color.

If you’ve seen my recent videos, they are also making the drake vocalization, which sounds like some kind of frog. It’s not a quack. Only hens quack.

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Mealworm pigs

Source

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Drill, baby, drill!

Source.

Mallard derivatives often engage in a foraging behavior that some people call “drilling.”  Whenever these ducks encounter standing water, their instincts tell them that water has tendency to draw out worms and other invertebrates. The best way to capitalize on this situation is to stick their bills into the water or mud and to force the water out of through these tooth-like structures on the insides of their mouths. Any worms or invertebrates that are caught on these structures are quickly eaten.

It is almost like how baleen whales feed, but it’s done much smaller amounts of water and so rapidly that it appears as if the ducks are drilling into the at full steam.

They use this same method on the water, but on land, they can easily turn an area into a muddy morass in very short order.

This is what they left behind after only about 15 minutes drilling.

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