Weird wood duck

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

Quote:
no not really, they swallow everything whole anyway, as long as he can get it in his mouth, he's good, they really dont use the touge for eating TOO much. It plays a role, but nothing like ours. They eat nickle sized acorns here, so he should be fine with that.

 

[desertdarlene]

That's good to know. I'll post an update on him if anything happens. He's a sweet little guy, usually they're extremely shy in this area. We only have a handful of them at this lake, though they did have a couple of broods this year. Last year, they had no babies.

 

[mymacandstormy]

he is a wood duck and I saw such injury a few years ago around my way. only this was to a mallard male.
many years ago we had hundreds of mallards and we would see damage to the bill, upper and lower in mallards..if partial piece of bill remains this is a death sentence wintertime if the ducks remain during frost when food is scarce. they cannot grasp food as acorns etc. usually the injury is due to fights with other males when they grab one anothers bills and furiously fight. or from snapping turtle attack when the ducks head is under the water. (if snappers grab the foot the duck is lucky if he only loses a foot in frenzy to escape) I saw a few one legged mallards long ago. this tongue injury may well have been caused by a snapping turtle.

 

[desertdarlene]

Thanks. We don't have snapping turtles where I live and we don't have frost. He ay have gotten it from fighting like you said. He seems to be doing OK as far as I can see right now. Here, They eat mostly aquatic plants, bugs, worms and snails, I think.

 

[desertdarlene]

Here's an update.

The guy's still plugging along, eating and everything. I think he does manage to pull in his tongue once in a while. I just noticed that his eye is pretty beat up, too. He was hanging around some young males today. Hopefully, he didn't get torn up too much by them.

I call him Doodle or Tonguey.

 

[desertdarlene]

Hi everyone! This was one of my earliest posts on BYC and I ended up naming that wood duck "Doodle". He lived until October 2012. I was reminded of him and this thread when I found an old photo of him in October 2010. I believe Doodle was my very first male wood duck I've ever photographed. I didn't have a zoom lens before then.

Doodle had a bad eye infection that got better, but I don't think he saw that well. He never got back to this condition.



Doodle has his own page on Squidoo and I once sold T-shirts with his photo on it:

Doodle for President on Squidoo

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hi everyone! This was one of my earliest posts on BYC and I ended up naming that wood duck "Doodle". He lived until October 2012. I was reminded of him and this thread when I found an old photo of him in October 2010. I believe Doodle was my very first male wood duck I've ever photographed. I didn't have a zoom lens before then.

Doodle had a bad eye infection that got better, but I don't think he saw that well. He never got back to this condition.



Doodle has his own page on Squidoo and I once sold T-shirts with his photo on it:

Doodle for President on Squidoo

He was gorgeous.