What, No Title?!

Dan has been in the Basque Country for just over a week, so I have been going back and forth between our house and the condo. It's always nice to spend some time at the condo. One of my favorite parts of staying at there is taking the pups for strolls around the pond. The pond typically has a nice variety of ducks hanging around it. This week, I was lucky enough to see hooded mergansers (Lophodytes cucullatus), American wigeons (Anas americana), American coots (Fulica americana), and of coarse mallards (Anas platyrhynchos ).

It's pretty cool, there is a white mallard who has been around since spring, when it was a tiny duckling. There must be ducks who nest near the pond that carry white genes. Several years ago there was another white mallard born, who grew up, flew off and we haven't seen since. This new duck seems to be sticking around a bit longer. Both ducks we watched grow from tiny little ducklings into full grown mallards. It's amazing to see how well they do. They seem to be quite strong and do very well competing for food and resources. It was fun to watch them grow from little ones into full grown ducks.

These white ducks were born and raised with wild mallards who nest and live near the pond. I would like to call them albino, but I just don't know enough about them to say for sure. They might be albino or they might have domestic duck genes mixed in. Either way, it's interesting that they are completely white with pink/orange bills and feet, with no other coloring whatsoever, while their siblings look like normal wild mallards. I love nature!