Mountain Duck

"We didn't often get to have duck back home in the Orthlands. It was uncommon for any of us to travel up to the mountains but shortly before winter many hundreds of them would leave the mountains and rest one more time near Haira's Land before beginning their long journey through the skies. Some of the hunters would go hunt them during this time and I joined them once when I was around thirteen. I found duck too oily for my liking."

— Ahriin to Captain Davetti

Mountain Life

Small lakes and ponds on mountainsides are the preferred habitat of the mountain duck. These regions often have fewer predators and fewer trees, shrubs, and other foliage that the few predators that there are could use to sneak up on the mountain ducks.   In Zinato it is said that the ducks got their coloration from Jorgencour - the god of the mountain - who turned them from white to brown when they beseeched the mountain for aid against the beasts that were hunting them.

The Summer Chorus

The mountain ducks are seen on Breharan from late spring to early autumn, the rest of the year they leave the continent to a more hospitable climate on other islands that don't feel the breath of the winter wind. During the spring and early summer, mountain ducks mate and lay their eggs for the young must be ready for their migration come autumn; this often fills the air around rivers, lakes, and ponds with the quaking of ducks.   While the warm conditions and lack of trees on a skyisland like Furahnzata sound like an ideal environment from which the mountain ducks would not have to migrate, it is not even a part of their migration path. They appear to have a preference for cooler - but not too cold - environments.