{"id":2339,"date":"2016-03-31T14:46:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T13:46:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/?p=2339"},"modified":"2016-03-31T14:46:50","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T13:46:50","slug":"which-small-ducks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/which-small-ducks\/","title":{"rendered":"Which small ducks"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

A couple of days ago I saw some birds in the water next to the cycle path on my way to work in the morning. My first thought was “small ducks”, but after having past them I realised I hadn’t looked closely at them and though I tried to fix the vague memories of their appearance in my head, by the time I got to work I realised that it could have been anything from a moor hen to a “funnily coloured duck that looked small for some reason”. I wish I could go back in time and look at them properly!<\/p>\n

Fortunately, time travel was not required in order to get a second look. On my way home from work, the ducks were still there, and though they got a bit shy when I carefully brought my bike to a stop and slowly got my camera out, they only swam a little further away, and stayed near some grass they could hide in, if they needed it. I managed to get a little video. I’m sure they were making some sounds at the time, but unfortunately it was so windy that it’s pretty impossible to hear anything on here. Towards the end I zoom in, and you can see them a bit better:<\/p>\n

I also took quite a few photos, and here are some zoomed and cropped versions. Click for bigger versions in lightbox:<\/p>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Small<\/a>

Small Ducks<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n

Hopefully some helpful ornithologists out there can help me figure out what they are. Please comment with your ideas!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of days ago I saw some birds in the water next to the cycle path on my way to work in the morning. My first thought was “small ducks”, but after having past them I realised I hadn’t looked closely at them and though I tried to fix the vague memories of their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[185,189,187,188,43],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nature","tag-birds","tag-ducks","tag-nature","tag-ornithology","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2384,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions\/2384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shotgundentist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}