Went out swimming at Lost Lake where I live. While sitting on a neighbors
lakeside lawn I was enjoying the dancing flight of several Pondhawks, a type
of dragonfly common on our lake. There were some eclipse plumage ducks,
mallards is my guess, who were milling about the edge of the lake. One of
them very energetically went after dragonflies several times. I got
interested, having experienced how difficult it is to net dragonflies and
wondering how long this duck would try before giving up. To my astonishment,
the duck caught three of them in about 10 minutes, which then seemed to fill
her up as she settled down and stopped hunting. Actually she caught 4, but
one got away. it would take her a couple minutes to fully grind up the
dragonfly, so her catch rate/effort/ time was very good. Way better than
mine ever is.

Having spent several afternoons fruitlessly swishing my net and not catching
a single dragonfly, I am still kind of annoyed that a dumb duck was so good
at it. Ok, I admit, I am jealous. Now if I could just teach a duck how to
retrieve.....

Rob Sandelin
South Snohomish County at the headwaters of Ricci Creek
Sky Valley Environments <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous at msn.com



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