
Look who's freshly eclosed! Why it's a... oh, dip I forgot to make note of what species these butterflies are. Suffice it to say they're all native North American species, mostly from Florida. If you really want to know you should go to the Franklin Park Zoo and go into the Butterfly Pavilion. On these wicked hot days when all the birds and mammals are sacked out and panting, the butterflies are super enervated.
365 Urban Species. #302: Ruddy Duck
Oct. 30th, 2006 06:38 pm
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Urban species #302: Ruddy duck Oxyura jamaicensis
Yesterday, we spotted our first winter duck on Leverett Pond. Leverett Pond is a widening of the muddy river between Boston and Brookline, in Olmsted Park. Because of its width, and the fact that it is fed by relatively warm, salty, and polluted water from storm drains and street runoff, Leverett Pond never fully freezes. Many different duck species converge there in wintertime, having left summer breeding places in Canada. Some ducks are only there for a few days or weeks, leaving to find better food resources, less crowded water, or fewer human disturbances, but many come in fall and stay until early spring. The ruddy ducks are usually there for a few months.
Ruddy ducks are small diving ducks with distinctive upturned tails. Their name comes from the male's reddish breeding plumage. As the male's feathers get ruddy, his bill gets blue, a feature that our duck is hiding from us here. You'll have to go peek at someone else's site to see that. Ruddy ducks dive under the water to catch insect larvae and mollusks, and to graze on aquatic plants. This duck species has been introduced to Britain, where it hybridizes with the closely related, and endangered, white-headed duck (O. leucocephala).
