Saturday, March 3, 2012

Place: Waterfowls in Tewinkle park lake..........

To feast my eyes on these graceful waterfowls on the placid and pristine blue lake, I rush as often as I can, to the beautiful Tewinkle Park. A plethora of ducks, mallards, american wigeons, Egyptian goose, Duclair duck, domestic goose, hybrids, crested duck, wood ducks, American coots and wigeons can be seen floating, diving, napping, sunning and preening themselves. What an  laid-back, carefree, enviable life they lead!

The other day I was reading somewhere that mallard ducks sleep with one eye open. Researchers have found that one hemisphere of the bird is awake while the other sleeps. This is an adaptive behavior to stay alert from looming predators. Today, I saw a couple of ducks napping on the bank of the lake in Tewinkle Park. Yes, one eye was in slumber, while the other was wide open to invigilate. Check for yourself.
It's the sleeping eye....

It's the awake one....

Wigeons......

Coots ....floating around in anticipation of bread crumbs..:)

A parade of Canadian goose ..........

A pair of Canada goose (Branta canadensis) were seen standing on the submerged rock. It was my maiden encounter with this genus of ducks. As I inquisitively scanned the contour, plumage and countenance of the new visitors, thanked my lot for spotting this duck couple. I could not help uttering, "veni, vidi".



Kids enjoy watching and feeding the ducks. Every time, I visit Tewinkle Park, happen to see kids leaning over the lake bank, offering bread crumbs. The normally slug and mud-eater birds have acquired such a good taste for the processed foods, it is to be seen to be believed, how they swarm the person with the food packet. Though its fun, kids must know feeding the ducks with greasy food harm them and the food scraps if contaminated with aflatoxin can almost kill....

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