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Thread: He likes a gadwall

  1. #1
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    Default He likes a gadwall

    Country diary: finely dressed gadwall has an air of austere decency

    I don’t know a bird book that has much to say about the gadwall (Anas strepera). Generally this unobtrusive winter duck is compared with the more common mallard, and comes off worse: smaller (just), duller (much), either shriller (the duck) or coarser (the drake) in quack. But like many a winter bird – think of the intricate copper-trimmed scalloping of a starling’s non-breeding plumage – the gadwall repays a little close attention.

    There are eight patrolling the choppy open water of the lake today. It’s a duck-rich morning: wigeon graze the grassed banks; teal, small and as trim as tea clippers, bob in and out of the island bays; the pigeon-grey of the water’s surface is broken by the white front of a drake shoveler (genus Spatula: you could flip a fried egg with its flattened-out bill). There’s no sun, today, no reflective glare from the lake; the ducks, so often lost in the play of shadow and light on uneven water, are foregrounded, their crisp winter liveries shown to their advantage.

    The gadwall has an air of austere decency about it: something to do, I think, with its posture, the neck held noticeably straight to the perpendicular, upright and officer-like, none of the mallard’s disreputable slouch. The drake appears dressed in close-fitted tweeds, a fine houndstooth of tan and grey. The white secondary feathers of the inner wing – the patch known as the speculum – set off the ensemble like the protruding edge of a pocket handkerchief.

    Windward of the islands, a male tufted duck, its crown feathers a sort of damp pigtail, jackknifes and dives. In diving like this for molluscs and other water invertebrates, it’s in a minority here (gadwall, shoveler and teal are all surface-feeding “dabblers”), but it’s not alone: on the far side of the lake, the bulbous hobby-horse head of a goldeneye turns slowly towards me with the water’s drift, and then it, too, takes the plunge. Then a covey of feeding stock doves clatter up out of the grass – and when I look back, I can’t see the goldeneye. Nearer to, a gadwall pair promenade by, poised, impeccable, perfectly turned out.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environm...west-yorkshire

  2. #2
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    I, too, love a gadwall.
    "Freedom Isn't Free"
    _Spc. Thomas Caughman
    1983-2004

    Quote Originally Posted by Dook View Post
    Go tigers!

  3. #3
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    I didn’t kill a single one this year. We usually kill them pretty even with Mallards in the woods but didn’t see a single one in the fields this year.

  4. #4
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    I love grey ducks, maybe more than greenheads.
    "Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
    I am haunted by waters" Norman Maclean.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phone Man View Post
    I love grey ducks, maybe more than greenheads.
    I knew you would be all over this
    Quote Originally Posted by trkykilr View Post
    A man learns a lot about himself in a thicket with a big hog. That dog already knows all he needs to know about himself.

  6. #6
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    They showed up here later than usual.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by turbo View Post
    I, too, love a gadwall.
    Yep

    I wish I could breathe life back in him, if I could I'd hunt him again tomorrow. - Ben Rodgers Lee

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  8. #8
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    I didn't see one all year but heard a drake come to roost at night before the season started.

  9. #9
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    jwilliams is online now 2th Doc's Fishing understudy
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    I love to shoot them. They are in my top 10.
    Quote Originally Posted by Glenn View Post
    Does Elton John know you have his shotgun?

  10. #10
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    With the large numbers of them showing up at SNWR, I can’t help but wonder who will be the 1st to pioneer 50-80acre SAV impoundments around here.
    With a gadwall’s (and widgeon’s) diet being almost 80% submerged aquatic vegetation, paired with thousands of birds choosing this area for wintering, I can’t help but think that the first man to dig an 80 acre, 3-6ft deep impoundment, seeded in vallisneria, southern naiad, and coontail, would hold a large number of them, with plenty of ringnecks to boot.
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  11. #11
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    I should have put this one on the wall, my last duck of this season.

    Quote Originally Posted by JABIII View Post
    Indeed, yet I have killed no Jack Miners today, this month, or this season as our boy DHall has. I am more jealous of his awesome pig of a bird than everyone else combined.

    First Peter 5:7 "Cast all your care upon God"

  12. #12
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    Pretty even in the woods you say?


  13. #13
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    I liked it the 1st time I saw it
    Be proactive about improving public waterfowl habitat in South Carolina. It's not going to happen by itself, and our help is needed. We have the potential to winter thousands of waterfowl on public grounds if we fight for it.

  14. #14
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  15. #15
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    They are indeed a dapper gentleman of a duck in a tweed suit. One of my favorites.
    "Only accurate rifles are interesting " - Col. Townsend Whelen

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phone Man View Post
    I love grey ducks, maybe more than greenheads.
    Blasphemy
    "And ignoring people on here....that's like being home schooled. Just say you're not ready to face life." Highstrung

  17. #17
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    Can't stand a damned gagwall.

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Phone Man View Post
    I love grey ducks, maybe more than greenheads.
    Erroneous!on all accounts
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  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by pee dee View Post
    Blasphemy
    Agreed .... Mallards are king.

  20. #20
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