Distorted Ducks

A wood duck typically leaves the nest twice per day but is usually gone for less than an hour. During that short time she must find enough to eat. She will eat high-protein/high-calorie foods such as insects and small aquatic creatures but a lot of her food is vegetation. This food is fairly low in calories so she needs a lot of it. It might be hard to gobble up enough greens in a short time but she has the answer: a “crop”. A bird’s crop is a muscular organ in the throat where food is stored before being actually swallowed down into the stomach.

When a duck returns and settles in they sometimes look like something is very wrong: there’s an alarming and lop-sided bulge in the front. But that’s only because her crop is full. It’s like how sometimes when we stuff our cheeks full of our favorite cake (mine is carrot with cream-cheese frosting) until they’re full – or maybe more on one side than the other – and that way we have some to enjoy later on in the day … or am I the only one who does that?

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