Tuesday Duck Tails

April 9, 2019 • 2:30 pm

There’s never a dull moment at Botany Pond. This morning at 7 a.m. no ducks were visible, but when I whistled for a while, Honey came flying in over the fence at the pond’s south edge, skidded to a stop in the water, and then swam rapidly to me, subsequently downing a big three-course breakfast.

This afternoon, when I met Anna at the pond for our first annual Joint Duck Feeding, only the drake was there (by the way, he needs a name), and we fed him for a bit. He’s a lovely male, with no obvious signs of domestic genes. He’s small, too, so he’s neither Frank nor James. Honey is certainly not monogamous!

Name this duck, please:

And then, when Anna and I were sitting on the edge of the pond, we heard a whir of wings and some quacks, and Honey came flying in.  She landed on the ground near us, and Unnamed Drake got out of the pond to join her. Here’s Anna feeding them corn:

And then they jumped into the pond, ignoring the food, and COPULATED! The drake mounted Honey, forcing her whole body underwater, including her head (which he had in his bill), and she was under for about 20 seconds. I wanted to break it up but Anna told me not to. She was right. Sure enough, the bout ended after a short time and both ducks surfaced, flapping their wings in postcoital glow. Then they preened and swam off together. I think that it was a real mating, though Honey may already have laid eggs.

Here’s the mating; you can barely make out Honey’s head underneath Unnamed Drake. Yes, there are two ducks in this photo. And remember that the male has to unfurl his big coiled penis.

COPULATION!

If they really mated, this is part of what was happening:

Afterward I took a few shots of the hen to see if it was Honey. And indeed, she had the same stippling pattern on her bill as one of the two hens from the other day (only one hen remains), with the distinctive black corner spots where the bill meets the head:

Finally, she got out of the water and blithely walked across the grass to the other, larger pond:

Sorry if I post too many duck pictures, but you don’t have to look at them!

 

51 thoughts on “Tuesday Duck Tails”

  1. Boy Duck Names
    Gary
    Moe
    Bubba
    Bernard
    Franklin
    Duncan
    Frazier
    Monty
    Charlemagne
    Caesar
    Gordo
    Copper
    Hunter
    Captain
    Rocky
    Vlad
    Saxon
    Bob
    Scotch
    Alfred
    Bellamy
    Finn
    Hedge
    Dudley
    Dillard
    Emmett
    Kennedy
    Hubert
    Rupert
    Budweiser
    Vernon
    Admiral
    Spike
    Xerxes
    Mikey
    Tony
    Baxter
    Runner
    Grey
    Colonel
    Cadet
    Raptor
    Peso
    Jack
    Coke

  2. I enjoy seeing your duck pictures.
    The other day watching the ducks in St James Park here in London, along with many aghast tourists, I watched two swans copulating. Like Honey the female was near drowned and only her long neck helped keep her head out of the water. They were very loving afterwards.

  3. Honey is certainly not monogamous!

    Nor has she taken any connubial vow to remain so, like a common Catholic or gibbon ape. Some gals just wanna gather their wild oats while they can. 🙂

    As far as a name for the new drake, I offered my suggestion the other day — “Ben Quick,” the interloper played by Paul Newman in The Long, Hot Summer who starts a love triangle and upsets the tranquility of the plantation owned by Orson Welles.

      1. Thanks. That is really interesting. I wonder why the Bmp4 gene turns on in land fowl but not in water fowl like ducks, geese and swans. Disturbing to think we can lose body parts at the whim of a gene.

  5. He seems a bit of a pirate – maybe “Sir Francis Drake” would be appropriate?

      1. Doh – I should have known that! How about “Carl” after Linnaeus? Now there was a guy who was good at coming up with (binomial) names for ducks…

  6. There can never be too many duck pictures!

    Honey also has that distinctive S pattern of dots on the right side of her bill that one of your readers pointed out recently.

    As for a drake name, how about Henri Thorough (in honour of Henry David Thoreau)? If he’s done a good job, we shall have ducklings.

  8. The feathers on the back of the drake in his first picture here look very much like a traditional Japanese painting of a koi. Perhaps that could be the basis of his name.

  9. How about naming him “Everybody”. It would be hilarious because when you say “hey everybody it’s time to eat” they would all get mad because they would think you mean the capital E Everybody.

    1. He coulda been a contendah!, or I guess he is, since he’s already, um, well, “docked” and “unloaded his cargo”…

  12. Seeing as it’s a real soap opera at the pond, how about Dr. Hughes, a character from As The World Turns.

  14. Never apologize for sharing photos of your “children”, or your “grandchildren” when they arrive!

    I like, for no reasons whatsoever, the name Cutty, as in Cutty sark (the ship not the scotch, well, I guess that’s fine too).

    1. cutty sark is Scots for a short, revealing female chemise which is the nickname for the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burns’s poem Tam o’ Shanter. Nannie Dee is the woman carved on the prow of the vessel.

        1. Not that I’m aware – that would be front page news! 🙂

          I’ve seen the clipper & Nannie at her Greenwich home & it’s hard to see her in detail with the Mk 1 eyeball – she [the witch] is painted all white & it’s only from photographs that one can see her garment has slipped to expose her bare breasts. Somewhere in the exhibit, which I didn’t enter – I circumnavigated the ship outside for free, I’ve just discovered [or a related exhibit nearby?] is a full size white painted Nannie copy** figurehead alongside many others according to a photo I’m looking at & that is also uncovered.

          ** Or perhaps it’s the one now gracing the prow which is removed every few years for refurb & which incidentally isn’t the original which lost an arm & the head in high seas.

          1. To be clear the “many others” in the photo aren’t Nannies, but figureheads from other ships.

  15. Mallards typically pair-bond in the winter and remain so until the female starts incubating, at which point the males says bye-bye and will probably never see her again. Next year, a new pair bond with a different male.

  21. Proud Harry.

    For no particular reason except he looks so proud in that second picture.

  23. No further proof needed that she indeed is Honey!

    Goodness me, that duck penis is frightening!

    You could call the new drake “Long Dong” 😉

  24. I can’t believe no-one has suggested “Aubrey”.
    Not only is it a fine masculine name, it’s is an obvious one for a drake who is a hit with the ladies.

    1. I nearly suggested that myself, but wasn’t sure if the cultural reference would be recognized around these parts. That’ll teach me not to jump to conclusions about how “down wid da kidz” the commenters here are.

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