There’s a lot I like about this picture. The warm colors come from the last rays of light at day’s end, contrasting the cold imparted by the frost during a cold snap.

There’s the cuteness factor, both from the inherent cuteness of the baby nutria, plus the comedic positioning where the side-by-side youngsters show the front of one and the rear of the other, looking almost like a single elongated nutria.

There’s also natural history here. First, nutria are herbivores and eat plants like the little one on the left, his two front paws feeding the stalk into his mouth much like a muskrat would do. Second, you can see why nutria have become so dominant in the milder climates. An adult pair has given birth recently in the middle of winter here in the Northwest, and the little ones are surviving quite well even during the coldest weather we see here in the valley.

Whenever I make notes about these beautiful little ducks in my journal, the first name that comes to mind is ring-billed duck. The male’s bill pattern is striking, a thick white ring near the black tip at the front and a thin white ring at the base. Those rings jump out at you in the field and are one easy way to distinguish ring-bills from scaup.

Problem is, the ducks are named ring-necks and not ring-bills.

Are they misnamed? Not technically, no, as they do have a reddish ring between the purplish neck and black chest. It’s just very hard to see, you need the right light and the right luck to see it. A hint of the neck ring is visible at the front of this ring-bill.

Ring-neck. Right, right. Ring-neck.