Friday Photo: 29 October
October 29th, 2010 at 8:13 am by ChthoniidIn deference to the time of the year, this morning’s photo is of a mallard duckling.
You should be able to see I’m shooting wide open to narrow the depth-of-field and defocus the background.
Hope everyone has a good day today. Going to be crazy-busy at work so will be hitting the espressos hard and often.
October 29th, 2010 at 8:15 am
My God! The bloody thing actually looks like him.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 8:18 am
Bring on all the Trevor jokes – there must be one we haven’t heard a thousand times already!
Nice pic btw.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 8:22 am
I like the yellow. Mallard’s effort to get a major international sporting event to NZ was to criticise the main person with a comment about a Heinikan bottle. Needless to say we did NOT get the event. Mallard thinks dealing with major international players is to deal with them like the PPTA. He does not get it. But John Key does, his more nuanced approach works for NZ. Goff is missing in action.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Could be a description of Trevor’s MO.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 8:57 am
The poor thing looks lost!
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 9:02 am
GF, it’s pondering a point of order.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 9:16 am
It might be wondering who its father is. Hope it never finds out.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 9:35 am
Redbaiter could have done better one-handed, whilst simultaneously arm wrestling Chuck Norris with his right.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 9:55 am
On a slightly more serious note some 60 years ago Grey Ducks had a limit on them for duckshooting and I don’t think they are still surviving as the dominant Mallards have bred them out.
Vote:Does someone with more knowledge of this have a comment.
October 29th, 2010 at 10:08 am
@gravedodger
Grey Ducks are still surviving, but not doing well. Many of our native ducks have struggled for conservation attention, partly I think because of the historic Wildlife Service’s focus on forest birds- and latterly DoC’s focus on islands rather than mainland species. The pateke- brown teal – basically got hammered during the 80s and 90s and has only recently had it’s decline halted.
Curiously the black stilt gets a lot of management to reduce interbreeding with pied stilts- while the grey duck gets very little to offset interbreeding with the mallard.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 10:38 am
One foot is obscured by the other, which is itself obscured by grass. Also a centre-of-gravity calculation using photoshop and matlab indicate that the subject is not perfectly centred.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 11:45 am
I would stop down a touch to get more of the duckling in focus, I think only the eye is in focus.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 11:52 am
RRM
“Redbaiter could have done better one-handed, whilst simultaneously arm wrestling Chuck Norris with his right.”
It wouldn’t be Chuck Norris that he wrestled with his right hand, in fact it wouldn’t even be a wrestle. Perhaps just a rustle.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 11:53 am
@Josh- click the image, bring up the larger version. The scaled version you see on the KB homepage has a lot of compression.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Compression? You mean like the resident photographic critic Spiderman?
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 12:03 pm
In the days when the Grey Duck went into serious decline it wasn’t ‘popular’ to save ducks.
Now the Mallard Drake is doing his best to wipe out the pure Grey.
Interesting sideline – debate heard the other day between Doc folk as to who is responsible – or irresponsible! – for the inter breeding of the Pied Stilt and the Black Stilt.
Nature will have her way!!!
Midday, Chthoniid, and only one coffee. How are you going?
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Quack quack…
I think I read somewhere that if you rescue a duckling from somewhere, the last thing you should do is put it in the bathtub with water because ducklings cannot yet exude lanolin themselves to make their feathers waterproof, thus they will get waterlogged and sink. The duckling usually travels under mother ducks wing, from which the lanolin is rubbed off.
These things just pop into my mind again for no reason.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
@fredinthegrass
4 double shots so far. It’s a busy day.
Vote:October 29th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
The little buggers are all on the shit ponds, getting nice and fat for opening day.
Vote: