United States or South Korea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The drive home in mid-day sun with no shade was pretty considerably hot, through miles of unsheltered, hot, dusty road, but with regular tiger jungle on either side! Some of us slept for me there was too much heat and too much to see for that. I think we got fourteen duck. There were pochard and pintail and one like a mallard. The pochard are good to eat here.
And there is the well-known `pintail, and the `pochard' or `red-head; and the `mallard, from which comes the common domestic variety, and the `scoter, and `surf, and `velvet, and `dusky, ducks these last four being all, more or less, of a dark colour. And there are the `shell-drakes, or `fishers, that swim low in the water, dive and fly well, but walk badly, and feed altogether on fish.
This, however, is incorrect, as there have been authentic cases of crosses between mallard and teal, pochard and scaup and other species, such hybrids having at different times been erroneously accepted as distinct species and named accordingly.
Blue-black buffaloes and white and yellow cows sauntered on the sloping banks, watched by men in white clothes and turbans it was all very sweet and peaceful in the soft morning light. The ducks flew high of course, just out of range, but we banged away merrily at anything inside ninety yards! M. in the boat got within range of some confiding pochard, and we on shore got a few by flukes.
Its colour is very similar to the pochard of Europe: its head is a uniform deep chestnut, its breast black; while the back and upper parts of the wings present a surface of bluish-grey, so lined and mottled as to resemble though very slightly the texture of canvas: hence the trivial name of the bird. Like most of the water-birds of America, the canvas-back is migratory.
As there is a large heronry and rookery on the trees on the islands, the variety of life there is very great. The writer saw in weather like that in the second week of February, 1902, about a hundred and fifty wild duck, thirty or forty widgeon, a few teal, a pochard, and a great number of water-hens.
Now as long as that heron sits there, not a bird will ever come up that pipe, not knowing what trick he will play them, and our only chance is to try another. There are some ducks, too, which nothing will tempt to come up the pipe. They are the pochard, or, as we call them here, pokers. Now they're the cunningest birds you ever saw!
The celebrated canvas-back duck, allied to the English pochard, makes its appearance among the numerous rivers in the neighbourhood of Chesapeake Bay about the middle of October, as well as in other parts of the Union. It is at that time, however, thin; but soon grows fat, from the abundance of its favourite food. It is from two to three feet across the wings. Its glossy black beak is large.
In the pochard, the bill is of a bluish colour; that of the canvas-back is dark green; moreover, the eye of the pochard is yellow, while that of its congener is fiery red. "I was gratified in perceiving that I had at last drifted within range of a thick clump of the ducks. Nothing now remained but to poke my gun noiselessly through the bushes, set the cocks of both barrels, take aim, and fire.
Diving for it, and bringing it up in its bill, the canvas-back readily breaks off the long lanceolate leaves, which float off, either to be eaten by another species the pochard or to form immense banks of wrack, that are thrown up against the adjacent shores.
Word Of The Day