Comments

  1. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    Wow, does that look photoshopped. Like a Suessian Wood Duck.

  2. says

    Mandarin ducks are like the Old World wood duck. They both are cavity nesters, which leads to wonderful footage of ducklings jumping out of trees. They are both in the same genus (Aix). The hen ducks are very similar to each other, but the males are a good example of how sexual selection can run amok!

    Mandarins are actually becoming quite rare in the wild, but you can buy them very easily here. They breed well in captivity, and there are feral populations in the UK. I saw an old video of the homophobe duck shooters from Louisiana hunting wood ducks where they brought down an escaped Mandarin and couldn’t figure out what happened to that wood duck! Their zoological erudition ended at the bayou.

  3. quotetheunquote says

    Wow, does that look photoshopped. Like a Suessian Wood Duck.

    To me, a Wood Duck (the drake, anyway) already looks pretty Suessian; but I agree, the Mandarin is even more “out there”. Both are very beautiful, but I think I really do prefer the drake Wood, it’s more “tastefully” decorated.

    Referring to what swestfall mentions @7, there’s a short video of this here:
    Four ducklings a-leaping

  4. says

    Never seen a Mandarin, but one year, a Wood Duck nested in a tree at my place, and I got to see the ducklings leaping, and managed to get a few photos while they wandered about, checking out the food situation.

  5. numerobis says

    I’ve never seen a mandarin duck. I’ve held a wood duck in order to tag it. It didn’t seem to be very happy about it, and slashed me as a result.