I had to get gasoline in my car yesterday and decided on a whim to visit the Urban Lakes Forest Park to get some photographs of the water.
What I found instead confounded me for awhile.
Yes there was a scenic view of the lake (pond?) with lots of ducks, the two in front doing their head under the water trick looking for lunch.
They apparently had read the signs.
But what puzzled me was the big guy who seemed to be herding them around.
This was definitely a duck of a different color.
I sent a couple of photos to my duck expert in North Dakota, Hunter Dan, and asked him what on earth this bird was.
Dan responded promptly saying he was in the mountains in Montana, had never seen a duck like that but that he'd look it up when he got home.
But in the meantime I decided to ask The Mighty Google and soon had an answer.
It appears to be a Muscovy duck, native to Central and South America but now common throughout the United States and even southern Canada.
And those red wattles on his face are natural, not some kind of disease.
So there you have it, Gentle Readers.
Just another lesson from a naturalist in the city.
