Nature or Nurture?

I was recently doing a little online research and discovered this quite extraordinary video on youtube of this duck riding on some young chap's surf board. It's the most peculiar thing. I don't know whether he's trained it to perform this trick (as I do know ducks have acute learning abilities) or it's simply a remarkable freak of nature and the duck has landed on his board. I might look further into this. 

A photo

The sun was shining this morning and I felt inspired to shoot a few frames out on the pond. I'm beginning to enjoy the new digital camera and it's instant gratification, the colours are on par with a lot of prints, although nothing will come close to the vivid colors of shooting transparencies.

Regardless, meet "hombre", he loves the water and socialising!

Harry's Practising with some ducks

I've been doing some reading and reminiscing on the days of Australian television where animals became stars of the small screen. Don Burke and Dr Harry (pictured) featured wholesome animals and presented them in a way which warmed my feather loving heart. Today I see the only shows with animals in them are "Vet emergency" or "Circus Animal Mishaps", its horrible the way these animals are exploited for a half hour prime time slot, the shows produced for people with short attention spans.

The following is a shot taken on a property not unlike mine where Harry shot a "duck" segment for his programme. It looks like it was a lovely day!

In the shot you can see a duck which reminds me so much of my beloved "Whitebeard", my favorite feathered friend. He is right at the front of the shot, a white duck with a black patch over his eye and darker wing feathers. Always in trouble was Whitebeard but a lovelier duck I have never known.

So please petition the networks to bring back these shows with Dr Harry and Don Burke... Respect our wildlife!!!!

Big Ducks...

I spent my weekend in Sydney visiting my daughter and her family (she says I bought the rain with me) and I noticed some disturbingly odd things regarding the local feathered population. Not since Plucka-duck entertained us on "hey hey its Saturday" have I seen such an over fed and huge duck, but not just one! We spent Sunday around the Eastern suburbs beaches and I couldn't help but notice how massive many of the local ducks are. I guess the ducks eat more or only the larger stronger ducks survive here... I noticed that not many people were parting with their hot chips (it was a little cold that day after all) but many families were feeding the local ducks bread, almost by the loaf at the beach... If 10 families spend a Sunday afternoon feeding these birds it dawned on me that these ducks are eating a LOT of carbohydrate filled bread....
It was strange to see these slightly built willy-wag tails and other small natives of threatened species flying around these "superducks", the ducks did seem particularly boisterous.... like a pack of teens almost.

If anyone is noticing similar phenomenon please email me your thoughts. I'm particularly perplexed currently regarding these ducks, perhaps I might contact some friends in Sydney to see if they are aware of the same.
I'll keep you all posted.

liveducks.com

And I thought I loved ducks!!!!!!

Thanks for the site guys I get lost in liveducks.com for hours at a time. I'll try to bring the best bits to my blog.... there will always be a link from my site though.

Duck Icons

Some fun for the duck enthusiasts! My poll is up and running on the right of screen.... who is it going to be? (any extra contenders please advise me!!!)


DONALD or DAFFY


Also if anyone has any collectable merchandise featuring either of the 2 please let me know because as you know I love all things webbed!!

"Ducks & Geese"

Just a nice video an old colleague from Oregon sent me of his grandchildren enjoying the "ducks and geese"

From Crackle: "Ducks & Geese"