Merry Christmas from Sage to Meadow!

I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Rain fell and our reservoir will last (current analysis) until February 15. Enough water fills the cow tank so ducks feed and socialize.

The longhorn painting hangs above my daughter’s fireplace in Lubbock, Texas.

Typing duck in flight part 2: the takeoff

The unidentified duck in the photograph below takes off.  Upon a clue from Bill Lattrell who loves wild places (see his Wild Ramblings blog), the duck may be a Redhead (Aythya americana).  Field marks from Peterson’s include the male that is gray with a black chest and round red-brown head; the bill blue with black tip.  Both sexes have gray wing-stripes.  I have one additional photograph of the duck as it took off from the pond.

 

Tentatively a Redhead duck in takeoff from pond (February 2011).

The other aspect that may be a factor in identifying the duck as Redhead is that they patter along the surface while getting underway.  From the photograph above, you can see the traces of a patter?  It all happened so fast when the duck took flight that I could only snap two pictures.  (There is a camera feature to take rapid sequential shots that I should turned on.)  The other photograph is in a previous post yesterday.  It is the same duck.

In any case, if any of you have an opinion about the duck above, please comment or write me at matthewsranch@msn.com.  Duck feedback anyone?