#canvasbacks

[spinus-pinus]

Canvasback Aythya valisineria

1/8/2023 Los Angeles County, California

A very beautiful partially leucistic female canvasback!

[antiqueanimals]

George Browne (1918 – 1958). Canvasbacks on the Nanticoke River (1950). Oil on canvas.

Coeur d’Alene Art Auction

[hmtaxidermy]

Couple of guys finished from the last group!

[three-eyed-elk]

🦆

[iridescent-wildlife]

Canvasback (Aythya valisineria) female. Family Anatidae, order Anseriformes.

Oklahoma, USA. January 2023.

[north-american-duck-poll]

Round 1 match 3A

The Canvasback is sexually dimorphic, meaning the males look different from the females. Males have a black chest and reddish head, as well as a distinctive pale back and sides that the species is named for. Both sexes have an unmistakable profile due to the sloping forehead that transitions smoothly into the long bill. Canvasbacks are diving ducks and will dive to the bottom of shallow ponds to forage for roots and tubers.

The Surf Scoter is sexually dimorphic, meaning the males look different from the females. Males are black with a white patch on the forehead and a white patch on the nape. They have white eyes and a large, colourful bill. Like other North American scoters, they breed near freshwater but spend their winters along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

(image sources)

[animal-families-tournaments]

[chicago-geniza]

People bring these "decadent" gastronomic descriptions up with post-WWI British fantasy novels, but I was reading The Girls of Slender Means (set in 1945), which sketches really sharp satire about scarcity and plenty and disordered eating and the figural body (a poet imagined an anorexic girl as the body politic and seeks to "convert her spirit" into this ideal mid-coitus), and thinking about the way both Upstairs Downstairs and Downton Abbey juxtapose the late Edwardian "feast" with the postwar, ingredient-rationed "fast" and how that operates narratively vis-a-vis Commentary On Society (again, WWI not WWII), and this essay came up on my timeline. Thanks The TLS

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Canvasback

Photo: Carol Foil

"This big diving duck, the largest of its genus, is wary and swift in flight, earning the respect of sportsmen. It is a characteristic bird of prairie marshes in summer and saltwater bays in winter. The Canvasback dives for its food, mainly the bases and roots of plants growing underwater. Its specific name of valisineria refers to the technical name of wild celery, an aquatic plant that is among its favored foods."

- Audubon Field Guide

[heepthecheep]

DC was so crowded! But it was so worth it!!

[tea-time-terrier]

More water birds!

Pied-billed grebe, cinnamon teal, canvasback, and a lesser scaup!

[spinus-pinus]

Canvasback and American Coot Aythya valisineria and Fulica americana

1/8/2023 Los Angeles County, California

big chungus canvasback is approaching you. what do you do?

[antiqueanimals]

Harry Adamson (1916 – 2012). Winging In – Canvasbacks. Oil on canvas.

Coeur d’Alene Art Auction

[hmtaxidermy]

Some cuties finished up!

[admiralgiggles]

Canvasback

[birdblues]

Canvasback