- Hello. My name is Anas platyrhynchos. I know that sounds a bit rude (I'll explain why later), so I usually go by my colloquial name of "mallard". We mallards live at Caversham lock, on the Thames, in England, after arriving here last week - for the last part of winter.
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- A gurt big dirty human stopped by this morning (I think I've seen him all week on the towpath, actually) - and started to take my photograph, alongside all my mallard brothers. He seemed particularly interested in taking my photograph though - and left my bigger brothers alone.
- It wasn't until I caught sight of my reflection in his lens, that it hit me like a brick.
- I've always felt, you know, a little different from my brothers.
- They were always telling me how opinionated I was, or more specifically - how "black and white" my pinions were compared to them.
- How I liked diving down to the bottom of the water for my grub (see photo below), whereas they would just dabble around on the surface.
- How I liked to eat meat (well.... molluscs and crustaceans) and they liked to eat just slimy weed and weird processed wheat that small kids in brightly-coloured anoraks would throw in their direction.
- I do love my brothers (sometimes in a very homosexual-manner, like many waterbirds (sorry.... didn't you know?!)) but even though I knew I was different, I wasn't sure why...
- Even for a nidifugous fledgling (like many waterbirds) like myself, I was extremely precocious - and as soon as I hatched last March, I waddled confidently away, never to see my family again. I joined up with some fun mallards and naturally thought I was a bolshy, bottle-green-headed common bird like them. But. I'd never caught sight of myself like I did this morning, in that strange human's lens.
- I'm no Anas platyrhynchos after all!
- I'm a beautiful , Aythya fuligula, or tufted duck. I have a wonderful piebald set of feathers, (sooooo that's what they meant by my black and white pinions!) bright yellow buttons of eyes and a super little flattened tail for all my underwater swimming. I'm quite a catch gentlemen, sorry, I mean laydeeez (I must get used to that now, I suppose).
- I may stay around Caversham lock for a little while longer, just to have my brothers, *cough* say goodbye to me (like only they can) - but I must NOT let them go too far..., but then I shall fly to a big lake (about a mile away I think, if memory serves me right), when the weather gets a little warmer -and try and find a brown tufted duck to chat up... Adios for now!
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