--- title: Ducks, geese and farm myths — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Ducks, geese and farm myths», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: A duck can paddle about all day in a winter pond and come out with dry feathers and warm insides, and that is two clever tricks at once. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Ducks, geese and farm myths # Ducks, geese and farm myths Lesson 213 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 13 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/0/) — A duck can paddle about all day in a winter pond and come out with dry feathers and warm insides, and that is two clever tricks at once. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/1/) — First, it rubs oil from a gland near its tail all over its feathers with its beak, so water runs off like rain off a raincoat, which is where «like water off a duck's back» comes from, a saying for something, such as a telling-off, that has no effect on someone. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/2/) — Second, the warm blood going down its legs passes right next to the cold blood coming back up, and hands over its heat, so the feet stay cold and lose little heat while the body stays warm. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/3/) — Ducks and geese, like many farm animals, are also wrapped in myths, from quacks that never echo to ostriches hiding their heads, and a bit of science puts them right. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/4/) — Ducks can swim in icy water because warm and cold blood vessels in their legs swap heat, so their feet stay cold and their body stays warm, and their feet do not stick to ice. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/6/) — White bread is bad for ducks: it fills them up without the goodness they need, and soggy leftover bread pollutes ponds; peas, sweetcorn, oats and duck food are better. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/7/) — Ducklings follow the first moving thing they see after hatching, usually their mother; this is called imprinting, and ducklings have imprinted on people, dogs and even boots. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/10/) — Geese defend their nests fiercely and hiss at people; they are big and brave and have been kept as guards, and an old Roman story tells of geese warning of a night attack. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/11/) — Geese fly in a V because each bird catches rising air from the wingtip of the one in front, which saves energy, and they take turns at the tiring front place. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/12/) — Many cow breeds are brown, red or black; only some dairy breeds such as the Holstein are black and white, and each cow's pattern is unique like a fingerprint. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/13/) — Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand: they lie flat to hide and turn their eggs in a nest dug in the ground, which from far away can look like heads in the sand. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/14/) — An ostrich in danger runs at up to about seventy kilometres an hour or kicks hard. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/213-ducks-geese-and-farm-myths/15/) — Only male turkeys gobble, to attract females and warn rivals; wild turkeys can fly and run fast, but farm turkeys are bred so heavy that they can hardly fly. - ← previous: [Chickens: eggs, pecking order and living dinosaurs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/212-chickens-eggs-pecking-order-and-living-dinosaurs/) - next →: [Hedgehogs: spines, hibernation and how to help them](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/214-hedgehogs-spines-hibernation-and-how-to-help-them/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)