Lady ducks, take notice (of the Mallard)

Lady ducks take notice, photo by R.J.E.

It’s been too long since I’ve added to the Michigan in Pictures Duckie Gallery. The All about Birds entry for Mallard Anas platyrhynchos explains:

Mallards are large ducks with hefty bodies, rounded heads, and wide, flat bills. Like many “dabbling ducks” the body is long and the tail rides high out of the water, giving a blunt shape. In flight their wings are broad and set back toward the rear.

Male Mallards have a dark, iridescent-green head and bright yellow bill. The gray body is sandwiched between a brown breast and black rear. Females and juveniles are mottled brown with orange-and-brown bills. Both sexes have a white-bordered, blue “speculum” patch in the wing.

Mallards are “dabbling ducks”—they feed in the water by tipping forward and grazing on underwater plants. They almost never dive. They can be very tame ducks especially in city ponds, and often group together with other Mallards and other species of dabbling ducks.

Read on for more including photos and some fun facts:

• The Mallard is the ancestor of nearly all domestic duck breeds (everything except the Muscovy Duck).
• Mallard pairs are generally monogamous, but paired males pursue females other than their mates. So-called “extra-pair copulations” are common among birds and in many species are consensual, but male Mallards often force these copulations, with several males chasing a single female and then mating with her.
• Mallard pairs form long before the spring breeding season. Pairing takes place in the fall, but courtship can be seen all winter. Only the female incubates the eggs and takes care of the ducklings.
• The standard duck’s quack is the sound of a female Mallard. Males don’t quack; they make a quieter, rasping sound.
• Mallards, like other ducks, shed all their flight feathers at the end of the breeding season and are flightless for 3–4 weeks. They are secretive during this vulnerable time, and their body feathers molt into a concealing “eclipse” plumage that can make them hard to identify.
• The oldest known Mallard lived to be at least 27 years 7 months old.

Check this photo out bigger and in R.J.E.’s slideshow.

Remembering the Mad Duck, Alex Karras of the Detroit Lions

Alex Karras of the Detroit Lions, 1971 AP file photo

“It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them, more strength to relate to people than to dominate them, more ‘manhood’ to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex. Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.”
~Alex Karras

Yesterday Alex Karras, All-Pro defensive lineman for the Detroit Lions passed away at the age of 77. Karras followed up with a sucessful career as a pro wrestler and as an actor in movies and on TV’s Webster. The New York Times obituary of Alex Karras reads in part:

Karras, at 6 feet 2 inches and 248 pounds — large then but smaller in comparison with today’s N.F.L. linemen — first earned fame as a ferocious tackle for the Lions. He anchored the defensive line for 12 seasons over 13 years, 1958 to 1970.

It was an era when the N.F.L. had abundant talent at the position; Karras’s contemporaries included the Hall of Famers Bob Lilly and Merlin Olsen. But Karras was an especially versatile pass rusher, known around the league for his combination of strength, speed and caginess. His furious approach — Plimpton described it as a “savage, bustling style of attack” — earned him the nickname the Mad Duck.

“Most defensive tackles have one move, they bull head-on,” Doug Van Horn, a New York Giants offensive lineman who had to block Karras, said in 1969. “Not Alex. There is no other tackle like him. He has inside and outside moves, a bull move where he puts his head down and runs over you, or he’ll just stutter-step you like a ballet dancer.”

Karras was named to four Pro Bowls, and he was a member of the N.F.L’s All-Decade team of the 1960s. He was not elected to the Hall of Fame, however, which has sometimes been attributed to the fact that the Lions fielded mostly undistinguished teams during his tenure. In Karras’s only playoff game, the Lions lost to the Dallas Cowboys by the unlikely score of 5-0 in 1970.

Read on at the Times for lots more. Some of my favorite Karras items:

• You can get an overview of his career in the Alex Karras entry on Wikipedia. He was recognized as part of the all-1960s Defense Team by the Pro Football Hall of Fame and won the 1957 Outland Trophy winner as the country’s best collegiate lineman and was a first- or second-team All-NFL choice nine times in his 12-year career.
• The Detroit Lions have an obituary from the Karras family that includes a tribute photo gallery. and some memories posted to Twitter. On the right (at least this morning) is an brief video chat with Karras from 2003 on the Paper Lion reunion.
• Participatory journalist George Plimpton’s book Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last String Quarterback is an incredible book that tells the story of Plimpton’s training with the Detroit Lions. It remains one of the best behind the scenes looks at the NFL. Karras is one of the stars of the book and the pair remained friends. Here’s a video of Plimpton & Karras talking about wresting.
• ESPN has a 2004 interview with Alex Karras about his football career, a $9000 annual salary and his reunion with Lions teammates. He also touches on the dangers of the game and health impacts. Karras was part of a 3500 player lawsuit against the NFL for negative health impacts and ultimately he suffered from dementia and other symptoms.  There’s also an interesting interview of Karras from last year that touches on a variety of subjects including his Iowa Hawkeye & NFL career and his work as an actor.
• One of my favorite roles he played was Mongo in Mel Brooks Blazing Saddles. Click that link for some of the slightly off-color but totally hilarious clips.

God’s Duck

SQUASH DUCK, photo by marsha*morningstar

Here’s the latest in the always popular Michigan in Pictures Duckie Series.

Marsha writes:

Seriously, untouched—-exactly how it grew and the markings are natural…just a little saturation of color and edging but this is really Gods duck.

See it bigger and in Marsha’s slideshow.

The Duck Lake Fire

Update (June 1): The Michigan DNR reports that fire crews are making good progress on the Duck Lake Fire in Luce County and that campgrounds, state parks, resorts and other businesses throughout the region and the Upper Peninsula are ready & waiting to deliver Pure Michigan fun!

Duck Lake Fire, photo courtesy Michigan Department of Natural Resources

The massive Duck Lake Fire, which started with a lightning strike last week, has burned over 22,000 acres and destroyed almost 100 structures. Over 200 firefighters from Michigan along with aerial water bombing crews have been fighting the fire, which they estimate to be 55% contained. Absolute Michigan has a bunch of photos, videos and links for the Duck Lake Fire.

You can see more photos there and on the Michigan DNR Facebook.

Return of the Duckies: Ann Arbor Summertime 2009

Ann Arbor Summertime 2009, photo by RichardD72.

Check this out bigger in Richard’s Summertime slideshow and remember that Michigan in Pictures is your source for Michigan duckie photos – accept no substitutes!

Exposure.Detroit opening: all the cool duckies will be there

Rubber-Duckies, photo by nichpr

This photo is part of Paul’s Artful set (slideshow). It’s also part of my developing collection of Michigan duck-related phoptography, but the less said about that, the better!

The Exposure.Detroit May Exhibit Opening Party takes place this Friday (May 16) from 7pm – 10pm at the Bean & Leaf Cafe in Royal Oak. The show features five photographers: Paul, Eric, Amy, Nicole and Ross and you can learn more about Exposure.Detroit and the upcoming exhibit from the Exposure.Detroit group on Flickr.

Is this a Paddle, Raft, Plump, Team, Brace or Dopping of Ducks?

Swarm!, photo by OtisDude.

OtisDude writes:

I was shooting some duck pictures today when all the sudden something startled all the ducks. Calm to chaos in less than a second. I managed to snap off 4-5 pics before I got a little panicked and got out of the way.

We’ve all heard of the many Inuit names for snow. In case anyone was wondering, ducks are pretty much the same. There’s quite a collection of names for a group of ducks including a paddling of ducks or a raft of ducks (when floating along), a plump or team of ducks (in flight overhead), a brace of ducks (post hunting I believe) or a dopping of ducks (when diving). More ducks on Michigan in Pictures.

None of these seemed quite right but fortunately there’s also a flush of ducks, which I’m going to assume covers exactly this scenario.

Snow (and Ducks) on the Huron River

Huron, originally uploaded by John Baird.

Speaking of snow (of which Michigan has almost none right now), here’s a stunning photo by John Baird of snowier days on the Huron River.Click the photo, click “ALL SIZES” and look at the largest to get the full effect.

When he’s not taking pictures, John is a furniture designer.

More ducks in the Michigan in Pictures Duckie Project.

12-12-12

twelve, photo by n.elle

A few things I have found…

• Wikipedia says that twelve is the largest number with a single-morpheme name (look it up) in English.
• A group of twelve things is called a duodecad, but most call it a dozen. Wikipedia says it may be one of the earliest primitive groupings because there are approximately a dozen cycles of the moon or months in a cycle of the sun or year.
• In February 2012 we wished the State of Michigan a Happy 175th Birthday.
• The Detroit Tigers won the American League Central, beat the Yankees to claim the AL title and went to the World Series.  Things did not go well there, but Tiger star Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown AND American League MVP.
• We lost some notable Michiganians in 2012 including First Lady Helen Milliken, boxing legend Emmanuel Steward and Detroit Lion great Alex Karras.
• We experienced an unprecedented March heatwave that shattered records across the Midwest. Many crops including cherries were decimated but the 2012 Michigan wine vintage appears to be a bright spot.
• Wine wasn’t the only thing that was super. Although Superstorm Sandy made life difficult for our neighbors to the east and kicked up some Frankenwaves, the Super Moon of May 2012 was a giant-sized treat. We also had a blue moon in August 2012. In honor of that Michigan in Pictures had a feature on the all-Michigan crew of Apollo 15.
• 2012 saw a real uptick in Northern Lights sightings. Of particular note was the aurora borealis of April 2012.
• In the art world, Adonna Khare won ArtPrize and Michigan State opened the new Eli & Edy Broad Art Museum.
• Today Hartland MI’s Colin Krueger turns 12, as do Abbigail Smith of Wyoming and Metamora twins Wesley and Wendy Metzger.
• Three posts that I really liked this year that I couldn’t figure out how to weave in were Nawadaha Falls and the Sweet Singer of Hiawatha, the Detroit Edison Illuminating Co. high line crew and Set Your Backgrounds for Spring.

Nicole shot this at the Greektown Casino. Check it out on black and see more great work in her Flickriver.

Some say Masquigon, some say Muskegon

Masquigon, photo by Rudy Malmquist

Wikipedia’s Muskegon entry explains that:

“Muskegon” is derived from the Ottawa Indian term “Masquigon” meaning “marshy river or swamp”. The “Masquigon” river was identified on French maps dating from the late seventeenth century, suggesting that French explorers had reached Michigan’s western coast by that time.

Father Jacques Marquette traveled northward through the area on his fateful trip to St. Ignace in 1675 and a party of French soldiers under La Salle’s lieutenant, Henry de Tonty, passed through the area in 1679.

The earliest known Euro-American resident of the county was Edward Fitzgerald, a fur trader and trapper who first came to the Muskegon area in 1748 and who died here, reportedly being buried in the vicinity of White Lake. Sometime between 1790 and 1800, a French-Canadian trader named Joseph La Framboise established a fur trading post at the mouth of Duck Lake. Between 1810 and 1820, several French Canadian fur traders, including Lamar Andie, Jean Baptiste Recollect, and Pierre Constant had established fur trading posts around Muskegon Lake. In 1830 Muskegon was an Ottawa village.

Euro-American settlement of Muskegon began in earnest in 1837, which coincided with the beginning of the exploitation of the area’s extensive timber resources. The commencement of the lumber industry in 1837 inaugurated what some regard as the most romantic era in the history of the region.

Read on at Wikipedia.

Check this photo out background bigtacular and see more in Rudy’s Neutral Density slideshow. While we’re at Wikipedia…

In photography and optics, a neutral density filter or ND filter is a filter that reduces and/or modifies intensity of all wavelengths or colors of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition. It can be a colorless (clear) or grey filter. The purpose of a standard photographic neutral density filter is to allow the photographer greater flexibility to change the aperture, exposure time and/or motion blur of subject in different situations and atmospheric conditions.

History? Yes, Michigan in Pictures has lots and lots of Michigan history … and a fair bit on Muskegon too!