northeast-flora-and-fauna

I met this pair of Mallards last winter and went to get a picture of the couple. One difficulty is that you don't always catch the ducks in the most flattering light, such as this female doing a deep dabble in search of food [1]. Though this is a fairly common feeding technique ( even among geese ), they'll also feed closer to the surface . (At least I think she was feeding; I suppose it's possible she was just camera shy.) January 1, 2023 at the Raritan Water Power Canal Photo 251773581, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) [1] Dabbling (among ducks) is feeding in water without completely submerging, as opposed to diving completely underwater. Ducks are generally divided into divers who can disappear from the surface and dabblers who can't/won't do this.

Here are a couple Mallards that I'm pretty sure are feeding while swimming along. Certainly it's not their standard way of swimming from place-to-place; they'd have their heads out of the water then, allowing themselves to breathe. But it's also not the classic head-down-butt-up pose of the average dabbling duck . But dabbling is considered a way to feed on stuff that's close to the surface of the water, and I'm thinking this is another way of feeding near the surface. April 27, 2021 at the Delaware Raritan Canal

Here's a Canada Goose that seems to be embracing its inner dabbling duck ; I'm not sure I could have identified it from this angle. Although I don't usually see them in this position, dabbling is apparently a feeding strategy they'll commonly employ to get at food that's a little further below the surface they can get to in an upright posture. Or perhaps the goose was just mooning me - it's hard to know exactly what it intended. 😀 May 6, 2021 at Sourland Mountain Preserve