Thanks to everyone for the replies.
It's definatley a pretty duck...if it is a hybrid between a mallard and a
cayuga it would be an interesting story how that came about and how it ended
up at golden gardens.
Yes the ducks did act as if the expected food when I went over to look at
them...they seemed fairly satisfied with my just talking to them nicely
though...good thing too, they wouldn't get anything from me but that!

Happy birding,

Maurie Kirschner
Seattle, WA
maurieckirschnerATcomcast.net

-------Original Message-------

From: Maurie Kirschner
Date: 08/22/04 10:31:55
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Interesting Duck at Golden Gardens

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