The Musk Duck (Biziura lobata) is a powerfully built duck found only in Australia. The male is Australia's largest duck. Adult males are 60 to 70 cm long and have a distinctive large, leathery lobe underneath the bill; females are 47 to 55 cm long and lack the lobe beneath the bill.
This species is a member of the 'still tail' group of ducks - and in some of the pictures you can see the fan like tail either sticking up, or being folded back over the top of the bird.
In 'Wildfowl' by Madge and Burn, (which is a bit of a classic!) this species is described as 'a large and bizarre Australian duck, one of the oddest of wildfowl' and its picture is shown on a plate labeled as 'Aberrant Ducks'!
Although these images are in black and white, there was almost no colour in the original pictures. A basically black duck under a heavy grey sky does not lend itself to lots of colour.
As both of these birds have a lobe beneath the bill, I assume that they are males. So this behaviour could either be just territorial or it could be some form of display to impress the females. My library is rather lack in detail on the behaviour of this species. There was a lot of leg slapping, tail contourtions and splashing going on.
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Love these glimpses of the quirky Musk Duck!
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteIntriguing! YAM xx