Thursday, July 9, 2009

Crested Blue Swedish!

I can't believe I haven't written about this yet. Now that summer is in full gear and the more exotic lake visitors are away, we have to make do with our familiar neighbors and check in with how they are doing. So, today's post is about a familiar friend: Crested Blue Swedish.

A Blue-Swedish is a type of domestic duck that has a grey-blue color; a crested-duck is another kind of domestic duck with a fluffy head tuft. There are several crested ducks at the lake but only one combines these two traits:

Creted Blue Swedish hangs out at the little beach which probably has a real name, but Tom and I call it Swedish beach. Blue Swedish has a mate, a white duck with a black beak. They're always together.

Looking at these two pictures, I noticed that Blue Swedish's plumage has changed somewhat over the years... the first picture is from 2007, and the one above is from this month. Weird!

Anyway, the two of them have a motley gang of friends, usually two other white ducks, a mallard, and a brown and white duck.

At one point we had an idea to make a "Wanted" style poster for Crested Blue Swedish... Have YOU seen this duck? It was a great "urban art" project idea that eventually petered out when we got distracted by the internet or something.
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3 comments:

  1. heidi heiligJuly 11, 2009 at 8:03 AM

    I love that they are always together!!! This is vindicating for me always wanting to hang out with my own mate! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 1, 2009 at 5:32 PM

    Here in Payson, AZ (Elev 5,000-Ft), we have a large collection of Geese and Ducks, mostly Canada and Mallards, happy in the near desert, living on the water-works recycling / aquifer-recharge ponds : We cheerfully drink what starts out as used toilet water. This may explain town politics, come to think of it !

    There are a couple very forward geese which are distinguished by "knuckles" on their heads. We looked them up by that moniker and sure enough, got hits on "knuckle-headed" geese and some nice photos.

    We also have at least one "fluffy-headed" duck -- and again, sure enough, we got to this site via that path.

    I assume that fluffy-head, the Swede, is a male and has an appropriate female -- plain -- somewhere in the group. He is NOT ostracized by the others -- they all seem to get along fine.

    Perhaps they are Socialists !
    .

    ReplyDelete
  3. LisaNovember 2, 2009 at 9:31 AM

    I don't think I've ever seen a knuckle headed goose. Does it look anything like a Chinese goose?

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