I'm off to Castlemaine in central Victoria tomorrow to have lunch with a friend who is a biological illustrator and printmaker. With any luck, I'll catch her at work. 'S great stuff.
In the meantime, here's a duck. We have had a bit of a surfeit of ducks recently, but this one's a little different. This is a male musk duck (Biziura lobata). Unfortunately, you can't see one of his most obvious features—the leathery lobe that hangs down from the underside of his bill like a standard. Although they are ponderous and almost seal-like on land, they are very agile in the water. This one was as hyperactive as a toddler on a sugar high, so I had to take what shots I could. The musk duck is an Australian endemic. Its closest relatives are Oxyura ducks, such as the Australian blue-billed (O. australis), the American ruddy (O. jamaicensis) and the Eurasian white-headed (O. leucocephala) ducks.
