I Can’t Sleep - Ducks | Peaceful Bedtime Reading for Sleep

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Unwind with this calm bedtime reading about ducks, the familiar waterfowl found across ponds, lakes, and rivers around the world. Benjamin’s soothing narration gently explores their habits, habitats, and cultural significance, all in a steady, comforting cadence. With fact-filled storytelling—no whispers, no hypnosis—this episode is designed to ease insomnia, reduce stress, and quiet restless thoughts. Perfect for sleepless nights or winding down after a long day. Press play, close your eyes, and drift into sleep while learning about the graceful and charming world of ducks. Want More? Request a Topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Ad-Free Episodes: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop Sleep-Friendly Products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Join the Discussion on Discord: https://discord.gg/myhGhVUhn7 This content is derived from the Wikipedia article on Ducks, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license. Read the full article: Wikipedia – Ducks. Happy sleeping! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast. What if I told you that most of the modern day self-help advice you've been hearing could actually make you worse? The key to a better life isn't about feel-good gimmicks that sound catchy. The Mentally Stronger Podcast gives you access to a licensed therapist who shares science-backed tools that will actually change your life. Hi, I'm Amy Morin, psychotherapist, mental strength trainer, and international best-selling author. In each episode, we cover research-back strategies, like how to stop relying on willpower and start creating habits for lasting change. And the five mental strength-building exercises you can do from your couch.

I also speak to world-class experts like Dr. Nicole Kane, who shares how to permanently heal anxiety by addressing the root cause. With over 200 episodes in our catalog, this podcast is for you if you're ready to crush self-doubt, conquer challenges, and become stronger than ever with therapist-approved strategies that can change your life. Listen to Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the I Can't Sleep podcast, where I read random articles from across the web to bore you to sleep with my soothing voice. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. Today's episode is from a Wikipedia article titled Duck.

Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl and the family anaddy. Ducks are generally smaller and short-neck than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several sub-families, they are a form taxon. They do not represent a monophyletic group since swan. mons and geese are not considered ducks. Ducks are mostly aquatic birds, and may be found in both fresh water and seawater. Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated waterbirds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, galanules, and coeds. The word duck comes from Old English duke diver, a derivative of the verb duken to duck, bend down low as if to get

under something or dive, because of the way many species of the dabbling duck group feed by upending. Compare with Dutch, duken, and German, tauchin, to dive. This word replaced old English Enoch enid, duck, possibly to avoid confusion with other words, such as Endy and with similar forms. Other Germanic languages still have similar words for duck, for example, Dutch ain't, German, Enta, and Norwegian And. The word anid was inherited from Proto-Indo-European. Latin, Anas, Duck. Latin Anas duck, Lithuanian Antis duck, ancient Greek Nesa duck, and Sanskrit-A-D, waterbird, among others. A duckling is a young duck and downy plumage, or baby duck. A male is called a Drake, and the female is called a duck, or an ornithology, a hen. The overall body plan of ducks is elongated and broad,

and they are also relatively long-necked, albeit not as long-necked as the geese and swans. The body's shape of diving ducks varies somewhat from this and being more rounded. The bill is usually broad and contains serrated pectins, which are particularly well-defined in the filter-feeding species. In the case of some fishing species, the bill is long and strongly serrated. The scaled legs are strong and well developed

and generally set far back on the body, more so in the highly aquatic species. The wings are very strong and are generally short and pointed, and the flight of ducks requires fast, continuous strokes, requiring in turn strong wing muscles. Three species of steamer duck are almost flightless, however. Many species of duck are temporarily flightless while molting.

They seek out protected habitat with good food supplies during this period. This molt typically precedes migration. The drakes of northern species often have extravagant plumage, but that is molted in summer to give a more female-like appearance, the eclipse plumage. Southern resident species typically show less sexual dimorphism, although there are exceptions such as the Paradise Shell Duck of New Zealand, which is both strikingly sexually dimorphic,

and in which the female's plumage is brighter than that of the male. The plumage of juvenile birds generally resembles that of the female. Ducks have a cosmopolitan distribution and are found on every continent except Antarctica. Several species managed to live on sub-Antarctic islands, including South Georgia and the Auckland Islands. Ducks have reached a number of isolated oceanic islands, including the Hawaiian Islands, Micronesia, and the Galapagos Islands, where they are often vagrants and less often residents. A handful are endemic to such far-flung islands. Some duck species, mainly those breeding in the temperate and Arctic northern,

hemisphere or migratory. Those in the tropics are generally not. Some ducks, particularly in Australia where rainfall is erratic, are nomadic, seeking out the temporary lakes and pools that form after localized heavy rain. Ducks eat food sources such as grasses, aquatic plants, fish, insects, small amphibians, worms, and small mollusks. Tabling ducks feed on the surface of water or on land, or as deep as they can reach by upending without completely submerging. Along the edge of the bill, there is a comb-like structure called a pectin. This strains the water squirting from the side of the bill and traps any food.

The pectin is also used to preen feathers and to hold slippery food items. Diving ducks and sea ducks forage deep underwater. To be able to submerge more easily, the diving ducks are heavier than dabbling ducks and therefore have more difficulty taking off to fly. A few specialized species such as the Morgansers are adapted to catch and swallow large fish. The others have the characteristic wide flat bill adapted to dredging-type jobs, such as pulling up waterweed, pulling worms, and small mollusks out of the mud, searching for insect larvae, and bulk jobs such as dredging out, holding, and turning head first.

To avoid injury when digging into sediment, it has no sear, but the nostrils come out through heart horn. The Guardian published an article advising that ducks should not be fed with bread because it damages the health of the ducks and pollutes waterways. Female mallard ducks make the classic quack sound, while males make a similar but raspier sound that is sometimes written as breeze. But despite widespread misconceptions, most species of duck do not quack. In general, ducks make a range of calls.

including whistles, cooing, yodels, and grunts. For example, the scop, which are diving ducks, make a noise like scop, hence their name. Calls may be loud displaying calls or quieter contact calls. A common urban legend claims that duck quacks do not echo. However, this has been proven to be false. This myth was first debunked by the Acoustics Research Center at the University of Salford in 2003 as part of the British Association's Festival of Science. It was also debunked in one of the earlier episodes of the popular Discovery Channel television show Mythbusters.

Ducks appear on several coats of arms, including the coat of arms of Lubena, Latvia, and the coat of arms of Fogelow, Eiland. And the coat of arms of Fugler Ulland. In 2002, psychologist Richard Wiseman and colleagues of the University of Hertfordshire, UK, finished a year-long laugh-lab experiment. Concluding, of all animals, ducks attract the most humor and silliness.

He said, If you're going to tell a joke involving an animal, make it a duck. The word duck may have become an inherently funny world, in many languages, possibly because ducks are seen as silly in their looks or behavior. Of the many ducks in fiction, many are cartoon characters, such as Walt Disney's Donald Duck and Warner Brothers Daffy Duck. Howard the Duck started as a comic book character in 1973 and was made into a movie in 1986. The 1992 Disney film The Mighty Ducks starring Emilio Estavet

chose the duck as the mascot for the fictional youth hockey team, who are protagonists of the movie, based on the duck being described as a fierce fighter. This led to the duck becoming the nickname and mascot for the eventual National Hockey League professional team of the Anaheim who were founded with the name the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The duck is also the nickname of the University of Oregon sports team, as well as the Long Island Ducks minor league baseball team. A rubber duck or a rubber ducky is a toy shaped like a duck that is usually yellow with a flat base. It may be made of rubber or rubber-like material such as vinyl plastic.

Rubber ducks were invented in the late 1800s when it became possible to more easily shape. rubber and are believed to improve developmental skills in children during water play. The yellow rubber duck has achieved an iconic status in western pop culture and is often symbolically linked to bathing. Various novelty variations of the toy are produced, and many organizations use yellow rubber ducks and rubber duck races for fundraising worldwide. The history of the rubber duck has linked to the emergence of rubber manufacturing in the late 19th century. The earliest rubber ducks were made from harder rubber when manufacturers began using Charles Goodyear's invention, vulcanized rubber. Consequently, these solid rubber ducks

were not capable of floating and were instead intended as chew toys. Sculptor Peter Ganning created a sculpture of a duck in the 1940s. He then patented it and reproduced it as a floating toy, of which over 50 million were sold. Besides the ubiquitous yellow rubber duck with which most people are familiar, there have been numerous novelty variations on the basic theme, including character ducks representing professions,

politicians or celebrities, a concept introduced by Mark Bolt's Rubber Ducks. There are also ducks that glow in the dark, quack, change color, have interior LED illumination, or include a wind-up mechanism that enables them to swim. In 2001, the Sun, a British tabloid, reported that Queen Elizabeth II had a rubber duck in her bathroom that wore an inflatable crown. The duck was spotted by a workman who was repainting her bathroom.

The story prompted sales of rubber ducks in the United Kingdom to increase by 80% for a short period. Rubber ducks are collected by enthusiasts. The 2011 Guinness World Record for a world's largest rubber duck collection stood at 5,631 different rubber ducks and was awarded to Charlotte Lee. In 2013, the rubber duck was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame, a museum in Rochester, New York, along with the game of chess. Toys are selected based on factors like icon status,

longevity and innovation. Ernie, a popular Muppet from the television series Sesame Street, has performed the song Rubber Duckie multiple times since the series began. Ernie frequently spoke to his duck and carried it with him in other segments of the show. On a special occasion, Little Richard performed the song. C.W. McCall's hit song, Convoy, and the movie and novel it inspired, are narrated from the viewpoint of a character who replaced the Bulldog Hood ornament on his Mack truck with a bathtub toy and use the on-air handle of Rubber Duck. The Akron Rubber Ducks Minor League Baseball Team, formerly known as the Aeros, officially adopted the nickname on October 29, 2013.

The nickname pays tribute to the city's history in the rubber industry, particularly as the birthplace of companies, such as Good Year, Firestone, B.F. Goodrich, and General Tire. The world's largest rubber duck was created by Dutch artist Florentine Hoffman in 2007, measuring 16.5 meters by 20 meters by 32 meters, and weighing about 600 kilograms. Since 2007, several ducks of various sizes created by Hoffman have been on display in countries and territories, such as Amsterdam, Netherlands, Lamele, Belgium, Osaka, Japan, Sydney, Australia, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Hong Kong, China, Gauchang, Taiwan, and Seoul, Korea, until 14th of November 2014, and went on display in the United States after the 20th of October, 2013. Rubber duck races, also known as Derby Duck Races, have been used as a method of fundraising

for organizations worldwide. People donate money to the organization by sponsoring a duck. At the end of the fundraising drive, all the ducks are dumped into a waterway, with a first to float past the finish line winning a prize for its sponsor. There are hundreds of races held in the United States, internationally. The largest race in the United States is the annual free store food bank Rubber Duck Regatta in Cincinnati, Ohio. First run in 1995, the Rubber Duck Regatta now features over 150,000 ducks raced to raise money for the organization. Since its beginning in 1995, the Rubber Duck Regatta in Cincinnati, Ohio has raised over $9 million, and over $1 million has been raised for each year's race since 2014. The annual Aspen Ducky Derby was first run by the Rotary

Club of Aspen, Colorado in 1991. The Derby now features 30,000 ducks and takes place each August in Aspen's Rio Grande Park. Through its past 20 years, the Aspen Ducky Derby has raised more than $2.3 million to benefit 65 non-profit groups. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, for over 30 years, the Wigan Construction Duck Race takes place in the summer at Johnny Appleseed Park to support the organization Scan, whose mission

is to eliminate the abuse and neglect of children in Northeast Indiana through family services, education, and community partnerships. One of the more famous rubber duck races is the great Knoxville rubber duck race. This race received attention when the Tennessee Supreme Court

ruled that it was a lottery, which stopped the race for a few years. After the state amended its constitution to allow lotteries with special exceptions, the race was reinstituted. The Derby Duck Race sees over 40,000 ducks race to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Tennessee Valley. A famous rubber duck race is the Halifax Duck Derby. This race has 10,000 rubber ducks in the Halifax Harbor along Bishop's Landing. There is a grand prize of $1 million Canadian dollars.

Other prizes include a trip to anywhere in Canada, large screen TVs, and more. This race has been very successful in raising money and awareness for its organizations. The Lumsden Duck Derby is a Labor Day tradition in the town of Lumsden, Saskatchewan. Founded in 1988 to help the town raise funds for a new ice rink, nowadays the Derby Races 20,000, 25,000 rubber ducks down a stretch of the Cupbell River and features a grand prize of 1 million Canadian dollars. The town makes a day out of it with a pancake breakfast, bands and other entertainments, kids activities, and a parade to the post. The Estes Park Rotary Duck Race raises money for 68 different charities. Contestants must choose which charity to donate their

money to when they buy their ticket. The Great Brisbane Duck Race is held on the Brisbane River each year to raise funds for the PA Research Foundation. The 100-meter race saw 30,000 rubber ducks enter the race in 2011. The PA Research Foundation also holds a team duck race challenge, where groups are invited to raise funds and participate in either the motorized or non-motorized team duck race, with a large 26-centimeter tall rubber duck that teams can decorate, brand, and modify. One other race was conducted in Australia in January 1988. It was run from the high-level bridge to the low-level bridge near Catherine Northern Territory on the Australia Day long weekend. Acting on behalf of the town's bicentennial committee, Royal Australian Air Force officers

Andrew Cairns and Jock McGowan constructed the release cage from PVC pipe, purchased and numbered the ducks, printed tickets, and even arranged a helicopter flypast. In Stockbridge, Edinburgh, since 1988, the Stockbridge Community Festival has held the annual Stockbridge Duck Race to raise money for local charities. 1,000 rubber ducks are released into the water of Leith

at the Stockbridge to float downstream to the finishing post at the Falshaw Bridge. The 2010 race was memorable for a sudden rain shower at the finish line. The 2011 race was held on the 3rd of July, with proceeds going to local charities Stockbridge House and St. Columbus Hospice. For over 25 years, Bibri and Gloucestershire has hosted an annual duck race on Boxing Day. The charity event, which attracts thousands of spectators, is split into two races. One featuring the iconic yellow ducks, the other featuring the more realistic decoy ducks, both held on the River Cone.

On the 31st of August 2008, the Great British Duck Race was held near Hampton Court Palace in London. The race broke the world record for the number of ducks used together, with a total of 250,000. The ducks used in the race were a bright blue color, after stewards in the previous year faced problems from spectators throwing their own ducks into the water. Each year on Easter Monday, a duck race is organized in Glenriding by the local mountain rescue team to race funds. Another is the Manchester duck race held at spinning fields on the River Errol each Good Friday with several thousand ducks. Every July, a charity race called Enten Cup is held in Nuremberg. The beneficiary changes each time, among them the Nuremberg Zoo. During a Pacific storm on the 10th of January 1992,

3 40-foot containers holding 28,800-friendly floaties plastic bathtub toys from a Chinese factory were washed off a ship, containing 7,200 each of blue turtles, yellow ducks, red beavers, and green frogs. Two-thirds of the toys floated south and landed three months later on the shores of Indonesia, Australia, and South America. The remaining 10,000 toys headed north to Alaska, and then completed a full circle back near Japan, caught up in the same North Pacific gyre current as the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Many of the toys then entered the bearing straight between Alaska and Russia

and were trapped in the Arctic ice. They moved through the ice at a rate of one mile per day, and in 2000 they were sighted in the North Atlantic. The movement of the toys had been monitored by American oceanographer Curtis Ebismeier. Bleached by sun and seawater, the ducks and beavers have faded to wide, but the turtles and frogs had kept their original colors. Between July and December 2003, the first year's ink offered a $100 savings bond reward to anybody who recovered a floatie in New England, Canada, or Iceland. More of the toys were recovered in 2004 than in any of the preceding three years.

However, still more of these toys were predicted to have headed eastward past Greenland and make landfall on the southwestern shores of the United Kingdom in 2007. These toys were the subject of Donovan Hahn's 2011 book, Moby Duck, the true story of 28,800 bath toys lost at sea. In August 2008, NASA's jet propulsion laboratory undertook studies of Greenland's Jakobshoven glacier to determine how interior glacial melt flow during the summer influenced its movement. A sophisticated football-sized probe that had a GPS device, pressure sensor, thermometer, and accelerometer was lowered by a rope into one of the glacier's moulins.

The probe's equipment was designed to find structures such as waterfalls inside the ice. Unfortunately, the probe went silent, so 90 rubber ducks marked in English, Danish, and Inuit with the text, science experiment, and reward, along with an email address to contact if found, were also put into the moulins, and it was hoped that the ducks would eventually exit and be found by hunters or fishermen around Baffin Bay. As of 2012, none of the ducks were found or returned, possibly due to being trapped in large aquifers later discovered inside the ice.