My Monday Musings

Yesterday I went for a walk in Central Park with my next store neighbor. We sat on a bench that had a good view of The Bow Bridge, as well as of the lake, and noticed that groups of ducks were swimming in circles.

When I came home I googled "ducks-swimming-in-circles behavior" and discovered the You Tube video that is posted atop this entry. What can be seen in it, is exactly what I saw the ducks doing in Central Park.

Evidently, this clip appears to have been posted by someone who saw this citing in Arizona. I was glad to come upon the video as I was unable to take any decent pictures of the ducks who were swimming in Central Park's lake.

Someone has commented on this video stating: "believe it or not I am glad to see this video as I am watching ducks do this exact same thing in the pond in the back of my mothers house and have been wondering why they do this I just googled it and it seems they do this to stare of algae and other possible edible things in the water to eat."

I thank the person who commented who posted the video as well as the one who commented on it, as their actions cleared up this phenomenon for me. Had I not seen their content, I'd still be going in circles to find the reason for these ducks' behavior. However, I am sorry I could not get any decent pictures of the swimmming-in-circles-ducks during my walk.

Moreover, I thought the ducks I had observed were the "usual" Mallards that I have seen in the park's lake (and successfully photographed). However, I did some research, and it looks like (from my understanding of Cornell's web-page, that I might've seen ducks known to be members of the Northern Shovelers, which are the ones featured in this You Tube video — don't get too dizzy watching these birds' antics.