Waterfowl

Oh, dude, it's like they both have webbed feet because they need to swim and catch food in the water, but they're different birds because, like, evolution decided to mix things up a bit. Ducks are like the chill swimmers of the pond, while gulls are the beach bums of the bird world, cruising along the shore looking for snacks. Nature's just out here doing its thing, man.

Human activities on the banks of the estuary can harm wading birds and wildfowl by causing habitat destruction through land reclamation or development, leading to loss of feeding grounds. Pollution from industrial and agricultural runoff can contaminate the water and food sources, impacting the health of the birds. Disturbances such as noise pollution, boating, or recreational activities can disrupt feeding and nesting behaviors, causing stress and reducing breeding success among the bird populations.

'Goose' is the female form of this type of bird.

The make form is 'Gander'.

An infantile goose is a 'Gosling'.

Great blue herons are primarily carnivores and feed on a variety of aquatic animals such as fish, frogs, and small mammals. While they may occasionally consume plant matter or insects, they are not considered omnivores as their diet mostly consists of animal prey.

Little grebes primarily eat small fish, insects, crustaceans, and aquatic plants. They are skilled divers and hunt underwater for their prey.

Flamingos are found in various regions around the world including Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and the Middle East. They typically inhabit shallow lakes, mudflats, and lagoons with large populations.

A grebe is a type of water bird known for its unique diving and swimming abilities. They have lobed toes and are excellent divers, using their pointed bills to catch fish underwater. Grebes are found in freshwater lakes and ponds around the world.

Ducks have several predators, including foxes, raccoons, snakes, and birds of prey like eagles and hawks. Additionally, domestic animals like dogs and cats can pose a threat to ducks. Environmental factors like pollution and habitat destruction also put ducks at risk.

A heron is a carnivore. Herons primarily feed on fish, frogs, insects, and other small animals found in or near water.

Based solely on google searches, it appears the gestation period for sandhill cranes is about 30 to 32 days. They often lay 2 eggs (alternating days) and often only 1 is fertile. There are 2 eggs being watched now (5/22/2012) that were layed on or about 5/4/2012. Parents seem to work jointly on keeping nest high and dry as the nest is in a pond and it's the rainy season so nightly both birds work most the night adding to the nest base. Then one sits on the nest, the other gone somewhere. 30 days would be 6/4... so babies soon due!

The “Father of American poets:” William Cullen Bryant

Mrs. Mallard's sister, Josephine, does not have heart problems.

An incubator.

There are 13 species of albatross left in the world with 750,000 breeding pairs. All species of albatross are considered endangered species.

It swallows monkeys and farts nauctious fumes

it depends on what water it lives in.

They do indeed eat the chicks of other birds as I have seen first hand a small to medium sized Pied Shag/Cormorant pursue and catch a Hard Head/White eyed duckling while its mum tried vainly to ward the Shag off. The Shag simply submerges, and once under the chick, pulls it down and swims off, surfacing a safe distance from the mother to devour the unfortunate little thing.

In one of my local parks (Queen's Gardens Perth WA) there is small lake system and the breeding birds include, Pacific Black ducks, Hard Head / White eyed Ducks, Wood ducks, lesser Swamp hens, Coots, Dab Chicks and a pair of Black Swans.

From several years of observation I have concluded that not one Hard Head ducklings lives longer than 10 days, 98 percent of Pacific Black ducklings suffer the same fate. Wood Duck ducklings do better (approx 30 percent survive) as they spend most of their time on land.

Less than 10 percent of Swamp Hen and Coot chicks make it to adult hood. The dab chick couple have had two chicks in total (that I've seen) one this spring and one two springs back, in approx 5 years. Both babies were close to maturity when I last saw them so I assume they survived and flew off to another water system. Whether or not they had siblings I can't say as I've never discovered their nests.

The Black Swan cygnets as as you would expect, have an excellent survival percentage. I can only recall 4 cygnets vanishing from more that 20 hatchlings over approx 6 years.

I know that Crows, Sea gulls, Herons, Falcons, maybe Pelicans, Cats and probaly even Rats will predate on ducklings but I am now convinced that the high mortality rate in Queens Gardens is mostly due to Cormorants. The fact that Wood Duck ducklings spend less time on the water than the other chick types and have the highest survival rate support this theory. I don't yet know if all of the 3 or so types of Shags in the Park have the same feeding behaviour but I believe they do as when hatchlings are about I haven't yet seen any Shags diving for fish. They spend most of their day sunbathing probably as a result of them being well sustained by a couple of hatchlings per day.

FYI.

365 days - sleep occurs while drifting on the north Atlantic currents. Breeding occurs midflight and is extremely satisfying.

Determining the sex of a goldfish is not always easy. If it's breeding season, a male will get what are called breeding stars on their gill plates; they look like tiny white dots. Sometimes the males will have them for longer, but that's not always the case.
The easiest way of course would be if a female releases eggs in your tank after being chased by a male.