View allAll Photos Tagged Dabble
Been dabbling in some star shooting lately, mainly still shots with anywhere from 3-10 sec exposures, but while up in PA over the weekend, where there is very little light pollution and the stars are plentiful, I wanted to try and get some star trails going around the North Star. I had planned on a longer exposure then this but had some other stuff going on so I only let this one go for about an hour, but I thought it came out pretty good.
Setup:
Camera - Nikon D90
Lens - Nikkor 12-24mm F4
Aperture - F/11
ISO - 200
Shutterspeed about an hour - set on BULB
- I also set the camera to do a long exposure Noise Reduction which helped clean it up
Larry Graham is truly a major icon in the world of music. He's an innovator of the "Thumpin' and Pluckin" style, which is what musicians call the slapping technique. Graham's innovative style has influenced three generations of musicians ranging from Prince, Stanley Clarke, Bootsie Collins, Flea, Victor Wooten and Marcus Miller.
He's a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member with the group Sly and the Family Stone. Both he and drummer Greg Errico created the unique and authentic group sound that changed both rock and soul to the masses.
Born on August 14th, 1946 in Beaumont, Texas, his mother was a musician and played and traveled all over the country. Raised by his grandmother, he move to Oakland where he used to sing Doo-Wop in groups he created as a teenager. He also developed into to a musician by playing in Mom's trio where Graham dabbled in playing guitar. Due to circumstances beyond his control, one night he was without a organ because of technical difficulties; he ended up renting a bass because he depended on the bottom of the organ sound. From that moment on, Larry developed his unique bass style.
On a suggestion from a listener of Sly Stone's radio show, someone recommended he check out Larry's bass playing. This the same time during the last 1960's when Top 40, Rock, Folk, and Soul music dominated the radio and popular culture. Sly was looking to put together a band of many firsts. One, hire musicians that transcended both race and gender bounds. Finally, bring the masses to it's knees with feel good music with tones of social messages similar to Bob Dylan, Odetta, and Curtis Mayfield. Sly and the Family Stone would dominate the radio, stadiums, and change how music was played and produced.
Graham and drummer Greg Ericco brought a funk and rhythm that was unparalleled in music. He played on the monumental records "Stand," "Hot Fun In The Summertime," "Life," and "Everyday People."
Journalist and interviewer Brian Pace sits down in part 1 of "Larry Graham on Larry Graham" and discusses his musical influences as well as upbringing.
Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by Brian Pace.
Early Spring as small shallow wetland open large numbers of dabbling duck and geese species can be seen in the open shallow wetlands. Huron Wetland Management District in east Central South Dakota. Photo: Sandra Uecker\USFWS
Hook: #10 wet fly. Tying thread: crimson. Tail: 8 cock pheasant centre tail barbs. Rib: Oval gold. Dubbing: Golden olive seal's fur, with a touch of yellow and a touch of green. Body hackle: Red phoenix soft feather cock. Hackle: Red phoenix soft feather cock. Wing: bronze mallard flank, tied flat and allowed to cloak the body.
Ebay girl...I was suprised when I got her, she is a long hair!! we never saw her in any stores. woo hoo!
American Wigeon: Medium dabbling duck, brown body with white crown, large green ear patch extending to back of head, buff washed breast and sides, and white belly. White shoulder patches visible in flight. Black-tipped pale blue bill. Swift direct flight, strong wing beats. Flies in tight flocks.
American Wigeon: Opportunistic and aggressive feeder, often foraging in open water by stealing materials brought to the surface by diving ducks and coots. Feeds primarily on leafy aquatic plants, grass, and agricultural crops; also takes insects and other aquatic invertebrates.
The American Wigeon was formerly known as "Baldpate" because the white stripe on their crown resembles a bald man's head.
Their short bill enables them to exert more force at the bill tip than other dabbling ducks, thus permitting efficient dislodging and plucking of vegetation.
Their diet has a higher proportion of plant matter than the diet of any other dabbling duck.
A group of ducks has many collective nouns, including a "brace", "flush", "paddling", "raft", and "team" of ducks.
G3 Super Long Hair My Little Pony Dibble Dabble.
I purchased her in March 2009 off a seller on MLP Arena.
The Super Long Hair g3 My Little Ponies are my absolute favorites I think. I do not have them all but someday I hope that I will.
Dabbling in the challenging and competitive field of tree photography. Photographed just east of Las Vegas on our way back from a visit to the Grand Canyon. My wife thought I was nuts when I made her pull over to the side of the road (she was driving... I hate driving) to take a picture or two of this tree. What can I say... we don't have Joshua trees in Canada.... plus I like the album.
Had a dabble with the softbox and flashgun again this time in the subway in Milnrow, knew it would be quiet given the time of day we went so wanted to take my time and have another try at going full manual control of the flashgun for a bit of practice and try the light in different positions/height, but typically my battery has gone in my radio triggers but luckily had my TTL cable so had to settle for Auto so just went for the shallow depth of field.
Light source was a Sony HVL-42 fired into a 70 cm Octobox with the internal diffuser on aswell.
Large chipped Atlantic Noble Triton Trumpet shell (The description Charonia Nobilis does not actually exist) about a foot long. I'm giving serious consideration to turning this shell into a horn. As a teenager I dabbled at playing the French horn, a one valve bugle in a Boy Scout/Legion marching band and a trumpet in high school. This would have a totally different aesthetic.
www.flickr.com/photos/21728045@N08/32538981152/in/photoli...
SOME BASICS ON SHELL TRUMPETS
AND SOME VERY BASICS ON HOW TO MAKE THEM
By Mitchell Clark © 1996
Two views of an end-blown shell trumpet made by the author from a Cassis cornuta ("horned helmet"); length 8 1/4"; pitch B3 (open) or A3 (hand-stopped).
At the request of the editor of Experimental Musical Instruments, to whom I once casually mentioned that I had made a few shell trumpets, I will write something about the process of making such an instrument. But, to the possible disappointment of the editor, there's not an awful lot for me to say about their construction, as the simple forms of shell trumpets are quite easy to make. So, in the style of an entry in a cookbook where the author gives lots of history, lore, and anecdotes, and then finally gets down to the recipe, somewhere in what follows are some basic instructions for making shell trumpets. Endnotes - often referring to illustrations which may be consulted in other sources - are included, and contribute additional texture.
I'll start by saying that when I was young, I knew about shell trumpets but obviously did not quite understand the principle of how they worked. I thought that no alteration was made to a conch's shell, which I thought was very beautiful and that it would be a shame to deface it. Rather, it seemed that getting the shell to sound was a matter simply of blowing very, very, very hard. Fortunately I did not rupture any blood vessels trying out this theory.1
But the shell trumpet (an instrument in the domain of study of the organologist) has indeed been altered from the animal's natural shell (a natural object in the domain of study of the conchologist) in such a way that would make life uncomfortable for the actual mollusk itself (an animal in the domain of study of the malacologist) - that is, a hole's been poked in the shell. A shell trumpet will obviously have to made after the mollusk has (willingly or unwillingly) vacated.
There are two basic places this hole may be placed, and so there are two basic approaches that can be taken for making a conch shell into a shell trumpet. A hole is made either at the apex (the tip of the spire) of the shell, or, alternatively, in one of the whorls to the side of the spire. The mouth hole may be at the apex if the spire is shallow, as on a Strombus gigas ("queen conch" or "pink conch," common in the Caribbean), 2 Cassis cornuta ("horned helmet," found in the Indo-Pacific region), or Cassis tuberosa ("king helmet," found in the Caribbean). The mouth hole may be on the side of the spire if the spire is more steep, as on a Charonia tritonis ("Triton's trumpet," distributed throughout most of the tropical Pacific and Indian Oceans). In some cases the hole itself forms the mouth hole; in others, a mouthpiece is added. Mouthpieces seem to be a matter of what tradition has evolved, as sometimes the same species of shell may be found with or without a mouthpiece. For instance, a variety of approaches will be found with Charonia tritonis. In Polynesia, a mouth hole cut into the side of the spire is the norm. 3 Occasionally a side-blown tritonis will have a mouthpiece added, as found in the Marquesas Islands; 4 this appears to be a rare arrangement. Concerning end-blown tritonis, on the Hawaiian pu 5 and on the Korean na, 6 a mouth hole is cut into the apex. On the Japanese hora, the tritonis (called horagai) is given a mouthpiece, placed at the apex. 7 Other shells used for trumpets usually have the hole in the apex, with a mouthpiece or (perhaps more commonly) without.
The qualities of sounds which shell trumpets can produce are varied, and also layered in the meanings and responses such sounds evoke. As children we learn of one of the poetic associations of shells - that if you hold a conch shell to your ear, you will hear (however far away from the coastline you may be) the sound of the sea. 8 Yes, perhaps it is indeed the air column enclosed by the shell filtering the ambient level of noise to create a faint roaring sound. But the association of shells with water, and the sea especially, is also at the basis of the many of the ceremonial uses of shell trumpets around the world. Shell trumpets have often been used at great distances from the sea, and this has contributed to the sacredness of their sounds. Thus the hearing the of sea in a shell may be a vestige of these older, profound associations. Shell trumpets produce a profound sound in every sense of the word - there is a sense of the sound coming from the deep past. This is both true as regards the actual antiquity of the use of shell trumpets, which dates to the Neolithic era, 9 and in the very shell itself. The apex of a univalve gastropod such as a conch or a snail is the oldest part of the shell (the place where the young animal started growing): in blowing a shell trumpet the sound is passing from the oldest place to the youngest - from the past towards the present.
Concerning this antiquity of the use of shell trumpets, the etymologist Eric Partridge puts forth the idea that the word "conch" may be of echoic - that is, onomatopoeic - origin. 10 Echoic, I suppose, of the sound of the blast of a shell trumpet, and thus - given the early Greek roots of the work "conch" - indicating the great antiquity of their use. A common term applied in a number of parts of Polynesia to the shell trumpet - pu - would certainly also seem, in its own way, to be echoic.
The most common use of shell trumpets in many parts of the world - and they have a remarkably wide distribution - is as a signaling device. A shell trumpet may announce curfew in Samoa, or announce that fresh fish is for sale in Fiji, or may serve as a foghorn on the Mediterranean. The shell trumpet often has a magical role in relation to weather. It may be used on the one hand be used to calm rough seas, or on the other to summon wind when seas are becalmed. 11 Shell trumpets are also used in musical contexts, most often in conjunction with ritual. The Indian shanka has held a place in the Hindu religion for millennia. There it may be used as a ritual vessel as well as a trumpet. 12 The shanka is also of significance in Buddhism, where, besides its musical uses, it figures importantly into Buddhist iconography. Befitting their role in Tibetan ritual music, where they are called dung-dkar, shell trumpets made from shanka receive detailed decoration, with carving on the surface of the shell itself and with added ornamentation in metal and semi-precious stone. 13 Shell trumpets were also important ritual instruments in Pre-Columbian South and Central America and in Minoan Crete. In these latter areas, skeuomorphic reproductions ("the substitution of products of craftsmanship for components or objects of natural origin") of shell trumpets, in ceramic and stone, are found archaeologically. The details of their exact purposes remain a mystery. 14 Generally a shell trumpet is used to produce one note; harmonics are possible but seldom utilized. One exception is the Japanese hora, where three, sometimes even four, pitches of the harmonic series may be employed. 15 On the end-blown Fijian shell trumpet made from the Bursa bubo ("giant frog shell"), there is a fingerhole which will allow for a whole-tone change in pitch. 16 Shell trumpets with several fingerholes have also been explored. 17 Occasionally pitch is modified by the player inserting his or her hand into the aperture. Although shell trumpets would seem to lend themselves to being played in a musical context in homogenous ensembles, along the lines of ensembles of panpipes and stamping tubes in Oceania (particularly Melanesia), such an approach is actually very rare. Tonga (in Polynesia) is the only place where conch ensembles have been found, and then only in the more remote areas (some of the northern islands) and only in a few musical contexts (for recreation and for cricket matches). 18 In contemporary music and jazz, however, ensembles of shell trumpets have been used by trombonists Stuart Dempster and Steve Turre.
Now, to get to work. I've made a few shell trumpets with the mouth-hole at the apex. A simple basic recipe is:
Ingredients:
The shell of a large univalve gastropod
A file
Jeweler's files for finishing work (optional)
Procedure:
File off the tip of the spire.
Smooth out the perimeter of the hole (optional).
That's it. But to be more specific: from my experience, for making a shell trumpet it seems that a conch of some size - something like seven inches or greater in length - is needed. My attempt at making an instrument with the shell of a young Strombus gigas (perhaps 5-6 inches long) did not work out: I just couldn't get a sound out of the thing. Perhaps a smaller shell such as that might work with a mouthpiece. I've made end-blown trumpets from Cassis cornuta (my shell of choice; see photos above), Cassis tuberosa, and adult Strombus gigas. My construction approach with the Cassis has been to file off the tip with an 8" mill bastard file and a lot of elbow grease, getting it to the point where the opening is about 5/8" in diameter. With the jeweler's files, I'll smooth down the insides of the opening. For a Strombus gigas, which has a steeper spire, I first cut off an inch or so of the tip with a saw, and then proceeded as with the Cassis.
It is certainly possible to get the job done more quickly. A friend once made a trumpet from a Strombus gigas by forcibly breaking off the tip - he's a percussionist - with little or no filing. In this case, it appears that the irregularities of the edges of the mouth-hole allowed for a more pronounced array of upper partials to the shell trumpet's tone. To remove the tip of a Strombus gigas, D.Z. Crookes (describing the process in his "How to make a shelly hautbois") supported the shell's tip "on an anvil, and nipped it off with a cold chisel," later carving a "half-civilized" mouthpiece. 19 I suppose one could also use a power grinder or sander to quickly get through the early stage on a Cassis, for instance, but I think a couple of hours or so of manual filing is not too big a price to pay (however, see photo below). Of course, being physically involved with the stages of the manufacture of a shell trumpet, as with any musical instrument, increases one's connection with the instrument and its sounds.
As regards side-blown shell trumpets, I've made one, from a Charonia tritonis (see photo below). For such a shell, a basic recipe could be:
Ingredients:
The shell of a large conch with a steep spire, especially a Charonia tritonis
A drill
Jeweler's files for expanding the hole and for finishing work
Procedure:
Drill a small hole into the side of the spire.
Expand the size of the hole and smooth out the edges.
Again, a little more detail. I placed the hole in the second whorl out from, and on the same side of the spire as, the aperture. With this arrangement the aperture faces backwards from the player when the trumpet is played. I used photographs of side-blown Charonia tritonis as my guide. 20 I used a drill bit of about l/8" diameter to get the hole started and then followed with a 1/4" bit. I expanded the hole to about 5/8" with a half-round jeweler's file. A larger rat-tail file would also be possible (although one needs to be careful of a bulkier tool damaging the interior of the shell), before following up with the jeweler's file.
Although I've made a few shell trumpets, I have not yet made musical use of them in any concerted way. I do have a piece - forthcoming in my series of Anthems for ensembles of "peacefully co-existing" sustained sounds - for a plurality of shell trumpets and pre-recorded tape. Also, when you've got a shell trumpet around, blowing it every once in a while does impress neighbors and passers-by alike.
Again, these are the most basic of recipes. I look forward to other writers who have more background in the individual traditions of these instruments, and who are more acquainted with the acoustics and detailed construction, 21 to contribute further on the subject of these fascinating instruments.
ENDNOTES
1. Despite the fact that a large conch does need to be modified to make a trumpet, a small snail shell can be used, unmodified, as a whistle. An intact snail shell is essentially a stopped pipe, and if the aperture is of an appropriate size - so the player is able to create an embouchure - the shell can be an effective whistle. Unaltered large conch shells filled with water were used for their gurgling sounds by John Cage in his pieces Inlets (1977, which also makes use of a shell trumpet) and Two3 (1991, which also includes a Japanese shô reed organ). A single such large water-filled conch was used by the present author in his "concerning an aspect..." (1988). Return to text
2. In general usage, the word "conch" is used to describe large spiral univalve gastropods even when it is not referring to what is, strictly speaking, a conch (the "true conchs" are members of the genus Strombus). This seems to be especially true in relation to shell trumpets, where the term "conch trumpet" is used quite freely. Return to text
3. See Richard M. Moyle, Polynesian Sound-producing Instruments (Princes Risborough, England: Shire Publications, 1990), 39 and figure 25, which shows several side-blown tritonis being played in Tonga. Return to text
4. Richard M. Moyle, Polynesian Sound-producing Instruments, 39 and lower portion of figure 23. Return to text
5. Te Rangi Hiroa (Peter H. Buck), Arts and Crafts of Hawaii, IX: Musical Instruments (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1957, reprinted 1964), figure 256a. Return to text
6. See Chang Sa-hun, Uri yet Akki ("Our Traditional Musical Instruments"; Seoul: Daewonsa, 1990), 31. Return to text
7. See Hajime Fukui, "The Hora (Conch Trumpet) of Japan" in Galpin Society Journal 47 (1994): 47-62, where several photographs and a diagram of the mouthpiece are shown. For a full-size color photograph of a hora, see Jane Fearer Safer and Frances McLaughlin Gill, Spirals from the Sea: An Anthropological look at Shells (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1982), 174-5. Concerning the hora, one of its less-documented uses is in a rite called Shunie associated with the Tôdai-ji Temple in Nara (see Hajime Fukui's essay, 52). A shell-trumpet ensemble portion of the Shunie can be heard on the album Harmony of Japanese Music, mentioned in the attached discography. Return to text
8. Note that terminology relating to the human ear is rich in shell imagery. The cochlea (a Latin word derived from the Greek kokhlos, land snail) is the spiral, shell-shaped portion of the inner ear which transmits the signals to the brain which are interpreted as sound. As a word referring to a shell-like structure, concha (from the Greek konkhe - a shell-bearing mollusk in general - which, via Latin, is the ancestral form of "conch") is a term used to describe the human external ear, also known as pinna. And pinna, from the Latin word for "wing" or "feather," is also the name for a genus of large - and wing- or feather-shaped - bivalve mollusks (family Pinnidae). Return to text
9. John M. Schechter and Mervyn McLean, "Conch-shell trumpet" in Stanley Sadie, ed., The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (London: Macmillan. 1954), I:461. Note that it is conjectured that the earliest use of the instrument was as a voice modifier - a megaphone of sorts. Return to text
10. Eric Partridge, Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English (2nd edition, New York: MacMillan, 1959), 114. Note especially one Middle English spelling, conk. Return to text
11. A recorded example of the former, from Chuuk, Micronesia, is included on the album Spirit of Micronesia, mentioned in the attached discography. The latter is mentioned in the entry for the shell trumpet ntuantuangi, of the Poso Toradja of Celebes, in Sibyl Marcuse, Musical Instruments: A Comprehensive Dictionary (2nd edition, New York & London: W.W. Norton & Co., 1975), 368. Return to text
12. Note that the Sanskrit word shanka (which may be romanized in various ways, with or without diacritics; the English common name for the shell is "chank") does share the same Indo-European root as konkhe, and ultimately, "conch." The Latin scientific name for the shanka is Turbinella pyrum. Return to text
13. See Safer and Gill, Spirals from the Sea, 176-7, for two views of a specimen dated 1400. Return to text
14. Jeremy Montagu, "The conch in prehistory: pottery, stone and natural" in World Archaeology 12/3 (1981): 273-9, which focuses on these shell-trumpet skeuomorphs. Return to text
15. Hajime Fukui "The Hora (Conch Trumpet) of Japan," 51-2. Return to text
16. Moyle, Polynesian Sound-producing Instruments, 39 and figure 24. Return to text
17. See D.Z. Crookes, "How to make a shelly hautbois" in FoMRHI Quarterly 80 (July 1995): 43, where he experiments with up to seven (?) fingerholes on Strombus gigas. Return to text
18. Richard M. Moyle, "Conch Ensemble: Tonga's Unique Contribution to Polynesian Organology" in Galpin Society Journal 28 (1975): 98-106. Also, his Polynesian Sound-producing Instruments, 41-2 and figure 25. Ensembles of three to seven, or more, side-blown Charonia tritonis are used. Return to text
19. Crookes, "How to make a shelly hautbois," 43. Return to text
20. For instance, Eric Metzgar, Arts of Micronesia (Long Beach, Calif.: FHP Hippodrome Gallery, 1987 {exhibition catalogue}), figure G, and Safer and Gill, Spirals from the Sea, 168. Return to text
21. See Montagu, "The conch in prehistory: pottery, stone and natural," 274-5, for a brief discussion of shell-trumpet acoustics which outlines some of the basic issues. Concerning shell-trumpet construction, note that Hajime Fukui's "The Hora (Conch Trumpet) of Japan" goes into a great amount of detail concerning making this particular instrument. Return to text
SOME SHELL TRUMPET DISCOGRAPHY
Following is a handful of recordings including shell trumpets. Occasionally, recordings of shell trumpets will appear on collections of music from Oceania. An example is Spirit of Micronesia (Saydisc CD-SDL 414), which includes a conche (note this alternate spelling) introducing two chants (track 20) and a conche used for warding off storm clouds (track 22; a photo on page 20 of the booklet shows a player of a trumpet made from a Cassis species). Though brief, this latter track beautifully captures, against a backdrop of storm waves, the shell trumpet's evocative qualities. Pan Records' Fa'a-Samoa: The Samoan way... between conch shell and disco (PAN 2066CD) includes a recording (track 1) of a conch-shell pu being used to announce curfew; on track 13, an animal horn used for the same purpose is also called pu. (The "disco" of the title is actually a brass band performance.) Another album on Pan, Tuvalu: A Polynesian Atoll Society (PAN 2055CD), has an impressive photograph of a shell-trumpet player on the cover, but does not include any shell-trumpet recordings.
A Japanese Buddhist ritual-music use of shell trumpets - as part of O-Mizu Tori ("a water-drawing rite") of the Shunie rite at Tôdai-ji Temple, Nara - may be heard on Harmony of Japanese Music (King Records [Japan] KICH 2021).
Steve Turre's Sanctified Shells (Antilles 314 514 186-2) and Stuart Dempster's Underground Overlays from the Cistern Chapel (New Albion NA076) include some contemporary creative uses of shell trumpets in ensemble. Colin Offord's Pacific Sound (Move Records [Australia] MD 3 105) makes use of shell trumpets in ensemble with instruments of his own construction. Together with other sound-makers made of shells, a shell trumpet may be heard on the track "Sea Language" on The Art of Primitive Sound's Musical Instruments from Prehistory (Hic Sunt Leones [Italy] HSL 003).
Baoding Balls
An on-line description of one:
This Japanese vintage Samurai Horagai is a trumpet shell of yoroi, or armour. It is about 50 years old, and is like the real thing used during the age of the Samurai. It is made from a real trumpet shell like the shells we have had before and found in many oceans including the Pacific, this one being from Japan. A mouth piece had been attached and it can be used just like in the old days when it was used to communicate during wars. Horagai was used as a command and signal of the old times during Samurai battles. Now it is used for decorating armour.
Includes:
1 x Battery with Built-In Charger
1 x Heating Core
1 x Stainless Steel Cone
1 x Mouthpiece
1 x Pick Tool
1 x Mini USB Adapter
1 x Case
potterest.com/pin/vapor-brothers-dabbler-vape-pen-filigre...
作品：大玄玄社會-戲水小男孩
創作年代：2011
材質：油彩, 畫布
尺寸：145x194 cm
Title：Illusion Society-Young Dabbler
Year：2011
Media：Oil on Canvas
Size：145x194 cm
Dabbling with daxophones, 28th February 2011, at The Wine Cellar, K'rd, Auckland New Zealand. Henri Tornyai, Glyn Evans, Nigel Gavin, Derek Tearne and John Radford (foreground).
We're having a contest for a free bottle of Tropical Traditions lotion at Not Dabbling as part of our REAL clean challenge this month.
notdabblinginnormal.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/real-clean-r...
Early Spring as small shallow wetland open large numbers of dabbling duck and geese species can be seen in the open shallow wetlands. Huron Wetland Management District in east Central South Dakota. Photo: Sandra Uecker\USFWS
Dabbling with AlienBees Large Soft Box and Lightroom 2.0 Beta
Strobist: Large softbox to right of camera
This started life as an unremarkable hand-held long exposure of a person emerging from a tunnel.
I played with the image for a while and arrived here.
www.birdingtourscyprus-bitw.com
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The mallard (/ˈmælɑːrd/ or /ˈmælərd/) or wild duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, the Falkland Islands and South Africa.[2] This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae.
The male birds (drakes) have a glossy green head and are grey on wings and belly, while the females (hens or ducks) have mainly brown-speckled plumage. Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black speculum feathers which commonly also include iridescent blue feathers especially among males. Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks.[3]
Taxonomy and Evolution:
The mallard was one of the many bird species originally described by Carl Linnaeus in his 18th-century work Systema Naturae, and still bears its original binomial name,[4] and in 1758, he had given it the scientific name Anas boschas.[5] The scientific name is from Latin Anas, "duck" and Ancient Greek platyrhynchus, "broad-billed" ( from platus, "broad" and rhunkhos, "bill").[6]
Mallard originally referred to any wild drake and it is sometimes still used this way.[7] It was derived from the Old French malart or mallart for "wild drake", although its true derivation is unclear.[8] It may be related to (or at least influenced by) an Old High German masculine proper name Madelhart, clues lying in the alternate English forms "maudelard" or "mawdelard".[9] Masle (male) has also been proposed as an influence.[10]
Mallards frequently interbreed with their closest relatives in the genus Anas, such as the American black duck, and also with species more distantly related, such as the northern pintail, leading to various hybrids that may be fully fertile.[11] This is quite unusual among such different species, and apparently is because the mallard evolved very rapidly and recently, during the Late Pleistocene.[12] The distinct lineages of this radiation are usually kept separate due to non-overlapping ranges and behavioural cues, but are still not fully genetically incompatible.[13] Mallards and their domesticated conspecifics are also fully interfertile.[14]
The genome of Anas platyrhynchos was sequenced in 2013.[15]
Certain mallards, by their divergent haplotype analysis, appear to be closer to their Indo-Pacific relatives, and certain others, to their American ones.[16] Considering mitochondrial DNA D-loop sequence data, they may have evolved in the general area of Siberia; mallard bones rather abruptly appear in food remains of ancient humans and other deposits of fossil bones in Europe, without a good candidate for a local predecessor species.[17] The large ice age palaeosubspecies which made up at least the European and west Asian populations during the Pleistocene has been named Anas platyrhynchos palaeoboschas.[18]
In their mitochondrial DNA, mallards are differentiated between North America and Eurasia;[19] however, in the nuclear genome there is a particular lack of genetic structure.[20] Haplotypes typical of American mallard relatives and spotbills can be found in mallards around the Bering Sea.[21] The Aleutian Islands hold a population of mallards that appear to be evolving towards a subspecies, as gene flow with other populations is very limited.[17]
The size of the mallard varies clinally, and birds from Greenland, although larger than birds further south, have smaller bills, paler plumage and are stockier.[22] They are sometimes separated as subspecies, the Greenland mallard (A. p. conboschas).[22]
Description:
The mallard is a medium-sized waterfowl species although it is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks. It is 50–65 cm (20–26 in) long (of which the body makes up around two-thirds), has a wingspan of 81–98 cm (32–39 in),[24] and weighs 0.72–1.58 kg (1.6–3.5 lb).[25][26] Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 25.7 to 30.6 cm (10.1 to 12.0 in), the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm (1.7 to 2.4 in) and the tarsus is 4.1 to 4.8 cm (1.6 to 1.9 in).[27]
The breeding male mallard is unmistakable, with a glossy bottle-green head and white collar which demarcates the head from the purple-tinged brown breast, grey brown wings, and a pale grey belly.[28] The rear of the male is black, with the dark tail having white borders.[29] The bill of the male is a yellowish orange tipped with black, while that of the female is generally darker ranging from black to mottled orange.[30] The female mallard is predominantly mottled with each individual feather showing sharp contrast from buff to very dark brown, a coloration shared by most female dabbling ducks, and has buff cheeks, eyebrow, throat and neck with a darker crown and eye-stripe.[29]
Both male and female mallards have distinct iridescent purple blue speculum feathers edged with white, prominent in flight or at rest, though temporarily shed during the annual summer moult.[31] Upon hatching, the plumage colouring of the duckling is yellow on the underside and face (with streaks by the eyes) and black on the back (with some yellow spots) all the way to the top and back of the head.[32] Its legs and bill are also black.[32] As it nears a month in age, the duckling's plumage will start becoming drab, looking more like the female (though its plumage is more streaked) and its legs will lose their dark grey colouring.[29] Two months after hatching, the fledgling period has ended and the duckling is now a juvenile.[33] Between three and four months of age, the juvenile can finally begin flying, as its wings are fully developed for flight (which can be confirmed by the sight of purple speculum feathers). Its bill will soon lose its dark grey colouring and its sex can finally be distinguished visually by three factors. The bill colouring is yellow in males, black and orange for females.[34] The breast feathers are reddish-brown for males, brown for females.[34] The centre tail feather is curled for males (called a drake feather), straight for females.[34] During the final period of maturity leading up to adulthood (6–10 months of age), the plumage of female juveniles remains the same while the plumage of male juveniles slowly changes to its characteristic colours.[35] This plumage change also applies to adult mallard males when they transition in and out of their non-breeding eclipse plumage at the beginning and the end of the summer moulting period.[35] The adulthood age for mallards is 14 months and the average life expectancy is 3 years, but they can live to twenty.[36] Several species of duck have brown-plumaged females which can be confused with the female mallard.[37] The female gadwall (A. strepera) has an orange-lined bill, white belly, black and white speculum which is seen as a white square on the wings in flight, and is a smaller bird.[29] More similar to the female mallard in North America are the American black duck (A. rubripes), which is notably darker hued in both sexes than the mallard,[38] and the mottled duck (A. fulvigula), which is somewhat darker than the female mallard, with no white edge on the speculum and slightly different bare-part colouration.[38]
In captivity, domestic ducks come in wild-type plumages, white, and other colours.[39] Most of these colour variants are also known in domestic mallards not bred as livestock, but kept as pets, aviary birds, etc., where they are rare but increasing in availability.[39]
A noisy species, the female has a deeper quack stereotypically associated with ducks.[40][41] Male mallards also make a sound which is phonetically similar to that of the female, with a typical quack; although it is a deep and raspy sound which can also sound like breeeeze.[42] When incubating a nest, or when offspring are present, females vocalise differently, making a call which sounds like a truncated version of the usual quack. They will also hiss if the nest or their offspring are threatened or interfered with. When taking off, the wings of a mallard produce a characteristic faint whistling noise.[43]
The mallard is a rare example of both Allen's Rule and Bergmann's Rule in birds.[44] Bergmann's Rule, which states that polar forms tend to be larger than related ones from warmer climates, has numerous examples in birds.[45] Allen's Rule says that appendages like ears tend to be smaller in polar forms to minimize heat loss, and larger in tropical and desert equivalents to facilitate heat diffusion, and that the polar taxa are stockier overall.[46] Examples of this rule in birds are rare, as they lack external ears. However, the bill of ducks is supplied with a few blood vessels to prevent heat loss.[47]
Due to the malleability of the mallard's genetic code, which gives it its vast interbreeding capability, mutations in the genes that decide plumage colour are very common and have resulted in a wide variety of hybrids such as Brewer's duck (mallard × gadwall, Anas strepera).[48]
Distribution and Habitat::
The mallard is widely distributed across the Northern and Southern Hemispheres; in North America from southern and central Alaska to Mexico, the Hawaiian Islands,[49] across Eurasia,[50] from Iceland[51] and southern Greenland[49] and parts of Morocco (North Africa)[51] in the west, Scandinavia[51] and Britain[51] to the north, and to Siberia,[52] Japan,[53] and South Korea,[53] in the east, south-eastern and south-western Australia[54] and New Zealand[55] in the Southern hemisphere.[24][56][57] It is strongly migratory in the northern parts of its breeding range, and winters farther south.[50] For example, in North America, it winters south to Southern United States and Northern Mexico,[50] but also regularly strays into Central America and the Caribbean between September and May.[58][59]
The mallard inhabits a wide range of habitat and climates, from Arctic tundra to subtropical regions.[60] It is found in both fresh- and salt-water wetlands, including parks, small ponds, rivers, lakes and estuaries, as well as shallow inlets and open sea within sight of the coastline.[61] Water depths of less than 1 metre (3.3 ft) are preferred, birds avoiding areas more than a few metres deep.[62] They are attracted to bodies of water with aquatic vegetation.[41]
Behaviour:
Feeding:
The mallard is omnivorous and very flexible in its choice of food.[63] Its diet may vary based on several factors, including the stage of the breeding cycle, short-term variations in available food, nutrient availability, and inter and intraspecific competition.[64] The majority of the mallard's diet seems to be made up of gastropods,[65] invertebrates (including beetles, flies, lepidopterans, dragonflies, and caddisflies),[66] crustaceans,[67] worms,[65] many varieties of seeds and plant matter,[65] and roots and tubers.[67] During the breeding season, male birds were recorded to have eaten 37.6% animal matter and 62.4% plant matter, most notably Echinochloa crus-galli, and nonlaying females ate 37.0% animal matter and 63.0% plant matter, while laying females ate 71.9% animal matter and only 28.1% plant matter.[68] Plants generally make up a larger part of the bird's diet, especially during autumn migration and in the winter.[69][70]
It usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing;[71] there are reports of it eating frogs.[71] It usually nests on a river bank, but not always near water. It is highly gregarious outside of the breeding season and forms large flocks, which are known as sords.[72]
Breeding:
Mallards usually form pairs (in October and November in the Northern hemisphere) until the female lays eggs at the start of nesting season which is around the beginning of spring.[73] At this time she is left by the male who joins up with other males to await the moulting period which begins in June (in the Northern hemisphere[74]).[75] During the brief time before this, however, the males are still sexually potent and some of them either remain on standby to sire replacement clutches (for female mallards that have lost or abandoned their previous clutch, replacement clutch[76]) or forcibly mate with females that appear to be isolated or unattached regardless of their species and whether or not they have a brood of ducklings.[76][77]
Duckling, one to two days old, is fully capable of swimming
The nesting period can be very stressful for the female since she lays more than half her body weight in eggs.[78] She requires a lot of rest and a feeding/loafing area that is safe from predators. When seeking out a suitable nesting site, the female's preferences are areas that are well concealed, inaccessible to ground predators, or have few predators nearby. This can include nesting sites in urban areas such as roof gardens, enclosed courtyards, and flower boxes on window ledges and balconies more than one story up, which the ducklings cannot leave safely without human intervention. The clutch is 8–13 eggs, which are incubated for 27–28 days to hatching with 50–60 days to fledging.[79][80] The ducklings are precocial and fully capable of swimming as soon as they hatch.[81] However, filial imprinting compels them to instinctively stay near the mother not only for warmth and protection but also to learn about and remember their habitat as well as how and where to forage for food.[82] When ducklings mature into flight-capable juveniles, they learn about and remember their traditional migratory routes (unless they are born and raised in captivity). They may stay with their family group for up to a year, despite being independent and no longer needing protection.[83]
During the breeding season, both male and female mallards can become aggressive, driving off competitors to themselves or their mate by charging at them.[84] Males tend to fight more than females, and attack each other by repeatedly pecking at their rival's chest, ripping out feathers and even skin on rare occasions.
The group of drakes, end up being left out, after the others are paired off with mating partners, sometimes targets an isolated female duck, even one of a different species, and proceeds to chase and peck at her until she weakens, at which point the males take turns copulating with the female.[85] Lebret (1961) calls this behaviour "Attempted Rape Flight" and Stanley Cramp & K.E.L. Simmons (1977) speak of "rape-intent flights".[85] Male mallards also occasionally chase other male ducks of a different species, and even each other, in the same way.[85] In one documented case of "homosexual necrophilia", a male mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after the chased male died upon flying into a glass window.[86] This paper was awarded an Ig Nobel Prize in 2003.[87]
Mallards are opportunistically targeted by brood parasites, occasionally having eggs laid in their nests by redheads, ruddy ducks, lesser scaup, gadwalls, northern shovelers, northern pintails, cinnamon teal, common goldeneyes, and other mallards.[88] These eggs are generally accepted when they resemble the eggs of the host mallard, although the hen may attempt to eject them or even abandon the nest if parasitism occurs during egg laying.[89]
Predators and Threats:
Mallards of all ages (but especially young ones) and in all locations must contend with a wide diversity of predators including raptors, mustelids, corvids, snakes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, turtles, large fish and felids and canids, including domesticated ones.[90] The most prolific natural predators of adult mallards are red foxes (which most often pick off brooding females) and the faster or larger birds of prey, i.e. peregrine falcons, Aquila eagles or Haliaeetus eagles.[91][92] In North America, adult mallards face no fewer than 15 species of birds of prey, from hen harriers and short-eared owls (both smaller than a mallard) to huge bald and golden eagles, and about a dozen species of mammalian predator, not counting several more avian and mammalian predators who threaten eggs and nestlings.[89]
Mallards are also preyed upon by other waterside apex predators, such as the grey heron (Ardea cinerea),[93] European herring gull (Larus argentatus), the Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) and the Northern pike (Esox lucius).[94] Crows (Corvus sp.) are also known to kill ducklings and adults on occasion.[95] Also, mallards may be attacked by larger anseriformes such as swans (Cygnus sp.) and geese during the breeding season, and are frequently driven off by these birds over territorial disputes. Mute swans (C. olor) have been known to attack mallards if they feel that the ducks pose a threat to their offspring.[96]
Conservation:
Unlike many waterfowl, mallards have benefited from human alterations to the world – so much so that they are now considered an invasive species in some regions.[97]
They are a common sight in urban parks, lakes, ponds, and other manmade water features in the regions they inhabit, and are often tolerated or encouraged among human habitat due to their placid nature towards humans and their beautiful and iridescent colours.[31] While most are not domesticated, mallards are so successful at coexisting in human regions that the main conservation risk they pose comes from the loss of genetic diversity among a region's traditional ducks once humans and mallards colonize an area. Mallards are very adaptable, being able to live and even thrive in urban areas which may have supported more localized, sensitive species of waterfowl before development.[98] The release of feral mallards in areas where they are not native sometimes creates problems through interbreeding with indigenous waterfowl.[97][99] These non-migratory mallards interbreed with indigenous wild ducks from local populations of closely related species through genetic pollution by producing fertile offspring.[99] Complete hybridization of various species of wild ducks gene pools could result in the extinction of many indigenous waterfowl.[99] The wild mallard itself is the ancestor of most domestic ducks and its naturally evolved wild gene pool gets genetically polluted in turn by the domesticated and feral populations.[100][101][102]
Over time, a continuum of hybrids ranging between almost typical examples of either species will develop; the speciation process beginning to reverse itself.[103] This has created conservation concerns for relatives of the mallard, such as the Hawaiian duck,[104][105] the A. s. superciliosa subspecies of the Pacific black duck,[104][106] the American black duck,[107][108] the mottled duck,[109][110] Meller's duck,[111] the yellow-billed duck,[103] and the Mexican duck,[104][110] in the latter case even leading to a dispute whether these birds should be considered a species[112] (and thus entitled to more conservation research and funding) or included in the mallard. In the cases mentioned below and above, however, ecological changes and hunting have led to a decline of local species; for example, the New Zealand grey duck population declined drastically due to overhunting in the mid-20th century.[106] Hybrid offspring of Hawaiian ducks seem to be less well-adapted to native habitat, and utilizing them in reintroduction projects apparently reduces success.[104][113] In summary, the problems of mallards "hybridizing away" relatives is more a consequence of local ducks declining than of mallards spreading; allopatric speciation and isolating behaviour have produced today's diversity of mallard-like ducks despite the fact that in most, if not all, of these populations, hybridization must have occurred to some extent.[114]
References:
*Wikipedia
Read more here. Credit: Faith Bernstein. Clockwise from top: Adriel Borshansky '12, Rimmy Doowa '12, Robby Seager '13 and Jonas Myers '13.
Español..
El ánade real o azulón (Anas platyrhynchos) es una especie de ave anseriforme de la familia Anatidae. Es un pato de superficie común y muy extendido.
English...
The Mallard, or wild duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is a dabbling duck which breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas,
Europe, Asia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand and Australia.