INPUT ARTICLE: Article: During the mating season, male ducks will have very bright coloration in their plumage to attract mates. After mating season, the male duck will molt and lose his bright coloration and resemble a female. Mallard ducks are sexually dimorphic, which means the males and females look different to each other. The females are brown and relatively dowdy, whereas the males have a vivid purple sash on the wings and are iridescent colors. The male Canvasback has solid white to light gray plumage. His female counterpart has plumage that is grayish-brown. The male Wood Duck has gray feathers with blue markings on the wings during mating season. The female's plumage is usually grayish-brown. Male and female Mottled Ducks have similarly colored feathers, making it difficult to tell them apart by plumage alone. Bill color is another way to tell the difference between a male and female duck. In many duck species, the bill color does not change during mating season, so this physical characteristic will stay the same throughout the year. In Mallards, the male duck has a bright yellow bill and the female has a brown and orange bill. In Mottled Ducks, the male duck has a bill that is a solid olive green to yellow color. The female's bill is brown to orange with dark splotches. Male Wood Ducks have a red bill that has a patch of yellow at the bottom. During mating season, the bill of the Ruddy Duck changes to a bright baby blue. Across species, male ducks tend to be larger than female ducks. In addition to have a larger body size in general, male Mallards, Rouens, and Welsh Harlequins, have larger heads and thicker necks than the females. Male ducks will have an upwardly curled feather near the tail; this is known as the 'sex feather.' This feather, which will become noticeable in male ducks when they are between two and four months old, remains after molting. Females do not have a sex feather. Female ducks tend to have a loud and hard quack. The quack of male ducks is usually soft and rough. If you have ducks as pets and you are comfortable handling them, you can gently hold the duck by its tail until it quacks. The sound of a quack can be used to differentiate between male and female ducks from the time that ducks are about one month old. In Muscovy ducks, the female's quack sounds like a trill or a coo. A male Muscovy will make a quack that's very deep and breathy (sounds like 'huch-uch-uch'). The female Grey Teal makes a quack that sounds like a cackling noise, which differentiates it from the male Grey Teal.

SUMMARY: Observe the duck's plumage (feathers). Observe the bill color. Look at the duck's size. Look for a curled feather near the tail. Listen to a duck's quack.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: Amtrak, for example, lets you pack a bike in a box for $10, carry folding bikes on as luggage, and even offers several trains with walk-on bike cars. Every company is different, however, so don't just buy a ticket and expect your bike to get on easily. You need to do your homework ahead of time to make sure you can transport your bike effectively. Expect a handling fee for bicycles, especially if they are not boxed up. This involves removing all the pieces, stripping off the handlebars, wheels, and pedals so that the bike fits in a large box. While you can usually get old boxes for free or cheaply by inquiring at your local bike shop, entrepreneurial packers can potentially fit the bike very large TV or appliance boxes. If you are uncomfortable with bike mechanics, you may want to get your local shop to break down the bike for you. You can then take the bike to a local shop at your new location to get it back together, for a small fee. This may be important for ensuring you're not carrying too much on board. Check the train service's website for any weight restrictions. Amtrak, for example, has a 50lb limit. This, however, should be more than enough for your bike. If you cannot weigh the bags at home, most Post Offices have a large scale you can use before you leave. Talk to the staff at the station about where you need to be, protocol, and tagging your bike so you can get it later. For longer trips, or anything requiring that you dismantle your bike and pack it in a box, arrive an hour before departure. Many bike shops will break down, package, and ship your bike across the country for you at a nominal fee, usually $20-30 plus shipping. Shipping, however, can get expensive. If you want to do it yourself, you should remove the wheels, handlebars, seats, and pedals and pack them into a bike box or large TV box, then ship the package from a post office, UPS, or FedEx.

SUMMARY: Check your train's bike policy before booking a ticket. Know that you may need to pack your bike in a box. Weigh all of your checked bags and the bike before you leave home. Show up well ahead of time to get your bike on the train. Consider shipping your bike long distances.

INPUT ARTICLE: Article: There's no reason to go straight into professional, expensive tools. In fact: it's best to start off with a beginners set because everyone tools differently and what works for someone else may not work for you. You want to be able to experiment. Good starter sets can be bought at very reasonable prices from stores like Tandy, both online and locally. Modeling tools, while technically designed for clay, can be extremely useful for leather crafting as well. Tools like a stylus are commonly used, as are tools like a modeling spoon. You should never cut your leather on scrap wood or any surface with a texture (and of course you don't want to cut on a surface you want to preserve), because the texture can be transferred to the leather and even make the leather more difficult to cut. You want to use a marble or granite cutting board. These can be purchased or you can ask a local contractor or granite supply company for scrap. A rubber mat underneath can dim some of the sound and keep your cutting board in place. A mallet is a universal tool that you will need for doing almost any style of tooling. You want to to use a poly mallet when you start learning to work with leather. Never use a metal mallet and avoid wood mallets (as they are delicate). Rawhide mallets are good but expensive, so if you want to experiment with these, wait until later. If you have to buy tools individually, focus on buying the most basic, most useful tools. A stylus, a swivel knife, a modeling spoon, a beveler, a mallet, and a few basic stamps (often also called single-action tools) will get you through learning the craft. Tools come in a number of sizes and the standard sizes are usually for large, male hands. If you are younger or generally have smaller hands, getting smaller sized tools will make the tool significantly easier to use. Stamps and the traditional shapes of leather working tools almost have a unique language unto themselves. Most of the tools will have names that do not seem to make sense, but almost all of them refer to the traditional cowboy leather designs and the specific purpose those tools were meant to serve. Learning the names for the tools can be extremely useful, especially for understanding instructions that you find online and for finding the tools you need. Tooling leather is just like traditional sculpting: there are lots of tools and everyone uses them in slightly different ways. You should not feel like just because you use a stamp to get one look when it's really for getting another, that you're somehow wrong. Whatever works for you and looks good is fine.

SUMMARY:
Buy a starter tool set. Consider some modeling tools. Get a cutting board. Get a mallet. Focus on the most important tools. Check to be sure that your tools are the best size for you. Understand the language of leather designs. Don't feel constrained to standard usages.