Subject: Interesting Duck at Golden Gardens
Date: Aug 22 12:45:32 2004
From: Melissa Nelson - menelson2001 at hotmail.com


tweeters,
specifically- Maurie and Cliff,

I too saw that duck a couple of weeks ago and and someone on Tweeters (sorry I can't remember your name) told me that it was a cayuga duck, if you do a search online you will see other examples.

Melissa Nelson
Edmonds Wa
menelson2001 at hotmail.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Cliff Drake<mailto:cliff at cliffdrake.net>
To: Maurie Kirschner<mailto:maurieckirschner at comcast.net>
Cc: tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2004 11:50 AM
Subject: RE: [SPAM] Interesting Duck at Golden Gardens



That duck has been there for a couple years. It has the curly tail
feathers of a mallard so I've always assumed it's just an odd mallard,
Too many people feed the ducks down there in spite of the sign,
probably why they're so friendly. I also wonder if thats why there are
so many hybrids, too much inbreeding?

Cliff Drake
Ballard Seattle WA
cliff at cliffdrake.net<mailto:cliff at cliffdrake.net>



> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [SPAM] Interesting Duck at Golden Gardens
> From: "Maurie Kirschner" <maurieckirschner at comcast.net<mailto:maurieckirschner at comcast.net>>
> Date: Sun, August 22, 2004 10:31 am
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu<mailto:tweeters at u.washington.edu>
>
> Hi Tweeters,
> Yesterday during the very lovely wind and rain storm I dragged my husband to
> golden gardens to look for birds and get a nice walk in the wind. Most of
> the birds were hiding very well. There were some glaucous winged gulls that
> I took a plastic baggy away from that held what looked like someones
> crabbing bait...they scolded me but I told them plastic wasn't good for them
> and variousother adult and immature gulls which still leave me scratching
> my head. Also saw four turns...unfortunatley I can't say which...with that
> wind to their backs they were out of my view to the north before i could
> pull the binocs out of my jacket. However the ducks were friendly and
> there were quite the variety of hybrids. One duck really has me stumped..
> i don't see anything like it in the books...not even domestic ducks. It was
> about the size of a widgeon and the whole body was irridescent dark purple
> and blue...almost black...the head was like the green of a mallards but
> darker. The feet were a murky greyish yellow. The bill looked like a
> mallards except some extra dark lines on it. Any ideas?
>
> I wonder what this storm will blow in....
>
> Happy birding,
>
> Maurie Kirschner, Seattle WA
> maurieckirschnerATcomcast.net