Sunday 11 April 2010

Those Black Ducks

Whenever we have walked past the house with a large natural pond there have always been a group of what appeared to be black ducks. Occasionally there have been little glimpses of green and blue but until yesterday the Sun has been facing me making it hard to see much more than a silhouette. Yesterday on our way back from a wander down one of the lanes I decided to nip through the churchyard and there they were, basking in the warmth of the sun. This time the Sun was behind me and their true colours were showing:

Ducks

We had disturbed their afternoon snooze in the peace and quite of the churchyard and they were slowly making their way back to a hole in the fence.

Ducks

What beautiful colours. Not at all the dowdy looking black I had seen on previous sightings.

Ducks

Apart from the duck with so much brown all the others were virtually black with fluorescent green and blue. After much searching on the net I am pretty sure these are Black East Indian Ducks, the oldest breed of Bantam Ducks, not from the East Indies but from the U.S.A.. Another identification problem solved at last.

6 comments:

  1. They are rather wonderful John.

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  2. These are stunners John. They look metallic.

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  3. They are Adrian, when the sunlight catches them at just the right angle.

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  4. That is true, Keith much the same as the neck feathers on the Stock Doves.

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  5. Beautiful ducks! I've never seen them here in the US of A. How'd they get that crazy name?

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  6. Hello Suziam. It is hard to find really definite information about them. The breed has been around for over 100 years and one idea is that they were given that name to make them seem exotic.

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Thank you for visiting. Hope you enjoyed the pictures. Any comment, or correction to any information or identification I get wrong, is most welcome. John

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