Perhaps you know your Daffy from your Donald, your Huey from your Louie and Dewey, but do you really know your ducks?Communications and Media Advisor Krysia Nowak takes a duck-dive into the shallows for a quick wade around the ducks of Aotearoa.This is the final episode, friends, with a focus on the fantastically fabulous whio. Found only in Aotearoa New Zealand (unless you happen to take a $10 note overseas), whio are more threatened than some species of kiwi – it’s time we showed them some love!What’s in a name?As Shakespeare almost once said, ‘a blue duck by any other name would still be blue’. Except these aren’t, really. At a stretch they might be a steel blue, but my personal opinion is that the name came about because ‘grey duck’ was already taken (See Ducktales Episode 1: Quacking the case on mallards and grey ducks). A more accurate name, then, is the te reo Māori ‘whio’, or ‘kowhiowhio’, said to resemble the whistling sound the males make.Whistling you say? That’s right, no g...
