All Things Chill

Wow. I was Flickr contact hopping this morning and I saw a picture of a crazy lookin’ bird and I freaked out. ‘WTF’ I muttered under my breath. Well… Its a Mandarin Duck!

The Philadelphia Zoo has some info on these birds:

Male Mandarin ducks are considered by many to be the most beautifully colored of all waterfowl. The head of the male has a chestnut and green crest, a wide white stripe along the eye, a bright chestnut colored side and a red bill. The male’s breast is plum colored, its belly is white, its back is dark and its sides are mottled buff. The female has a crested head with a white eye-ring, a gray-brown mottled back and a lighter spotted belly. She appears very similar to the female American wood duck as the two species are closely related. Mandarin ducks are one of the “perching” ducks. They have sharp talons and spend much of their time in trees.

Also…

Mandarin Ducks form a strong attachment to their partners and are said to pine away and die, hence, they are also an emblem of conjugal fidelity. A pair of Mandarin Ducks are excellent symbols for keeping love alive. Always keep in a pair and display them in your Tien yi romance direction in your home to keep your romance alive.

They’re so cool lookin’ right? They don’t even look real. Here are directions to Mandarin Duck Origami.

HOORAY for Randomness!

~Spec

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 at 7:40 am and is filed under Randomness From The Internets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.