I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again, I have no idea how I got anything done while I was in the corporate grind. Even with the forced downtime to recover from the recent ultra race, it still felt like I was “busy”. The bright spot is looking back I was able to get a number of the “Bri-do” items checked off. The break gave me a chance to turn my attention to the Mothership with two mega posts on this year’s Halloween Haunted Trail Prop Tutorials – the new 2023 tombstones (link here)
..and the Radioactive Spiders (link here). Along with those prop posts, also threw in the Bix 7 recap (link here) and the all too painful recollection from the recent 100K ultra attempt that caused the whole extended rest in the first place (link here). Definitely some heavy lifting posts. Now time to get back to the “wild’ side where we have plenty of material to bring you. Brad just sent me a number of new adventure posts you will surely enjoy and I still need to dip my toe into our Texas and Florida adventures. I want to give Brad and family a bit more time to focus on their affairs, so you are with me today….but first a quick brag.
Congrats to Linda and Ruger who earned their Beginner FastCAT Title yesterday. Basically the 100 yard dash for doggies. Found something Ruger was basically born to compete in and he absolutely loves it. In previous runs he was in the 19.5mph range – dialed it back this weekend to 18.5mph which is still amazing (they had two patches of straw on the course covering muddy areas which he didn’t like and basically leaped over it each time likely accounting for the slower time).
Guessing about now you are wondering if we are ever going to get to the featured duck of the day. Without further delay…
Hit the jump to see a few more pictures of our yellow-eyed wave runner.
Decided I would go ahead and close out the series of Ducks from our March visit to Sunset Park in Las Vegas, NV. In the previous posts I covered to somewhat similar Ducks, the Canvasback (link here) and the Redhead (link here). This Scaup family can also cause some head scratching in the field. There are two here in North America, the Greater and the Lesser.
The Lesser is the more pervasive species covering practically all of North America down into Central America at some point during the year. The Greater’s range stops short in the Southwest and for some reason keeps its distance from the fine folks in South Carolina and the majority of Georgia and Florida. For those outside of the Greater’s range, the ID process is a whole lot easier with the exception of rarities that might show up from time to time. The rest of us have to do a bit of sleuthing to distinguish between the two.
This particular specimen was hanging out in the large pond located in the middle of the park. It caught my attention because it looked different than the majority of other Scaups paddling about. Oddly enough, I ended up not taking pictures of the more “common” looking ones, so I do not have a side by side comparison from that pond. I have covered them in the past though, so you can check out the Lesser version here.
If you look at those poor images in that previous post or better yet, check out the Cornell reference shots (link here), you will notice the Lesser has a very prominent peak towards the back of their head and a slightly flatter back of the neck as a result. That is practically the only way to really distinguish them apart. The reason this featured specimen caught my eye is it had the much more rounded head profile typical of the Greater variety. Note, there is slightly more distinction in the females between the two species.
I will not count out “park friskiness” as it is common to see some cross-breeding in those settings. Typically, that is more pointed at those horny Mallards producing those odd looking green splotchy abominations that terrorize small children out of their Goldfish crackers. This one fit the color profile perfectly so likely just Scaup in the mix if it is a composite. Held a consultation with Ron and went over the reference points again before we came to the consensus on the Greater.
Unfortunately, Cornell is pretty weak on additional interesting facts about this particular Duck. In lieu of that, here is a shot of a Duck also shot that day on the pond. As you can see, this one is very similar to the Scaups, especially the Lesser per the dominant head peak.
That is the Ring-Necked Duck (don’t get me started on the dumb-ass name). Very similar coloring, dark head down to front of the breast and along the back with grey/white on the sides. They also have the same eye which doesn’t help there. Fortunately, they do have a white ring on their bills (Ron refers to them as the Bowling Shoe Duck). Seems like a much more logical name, just saying ha. The Scaups break up their dark coloring with tight barring along the center of their backs. If you just remember the bowling shoe and the solid vs barred back you should have no issues calling it in the field.
Will call it a post there. Hope you enjoyed learning about another resident of the Sunset Park ponds. Take care everyone, thanks for stopping by.
Life Intrigued 