Mordecai and Esther are still here, and looking fat, healthy and happy. I thought I’d show a few photos today in lieu of Readers’ Wildlife, and add a couple of videos. (I tried to get a photo of Esther quackling loudly, which she’s wont to do, but she didn’t perform yesterday, when I took all these photos and videos.)
First a photo of the ducks. Here’s Mordecai. Isn’t he handsome?
Here he is getting out of the pond after a bracing swim (It was chilly yesterday). Esther swims nearby (the camera was a bit wonky), about to follow him:
The lovely Queen Esther:
Here’s the pair on their favorite spot: the warm cement ledge on the east side of the Pond, where they rest and dry off in the afternoons. Esther has a quick drink, and they sun themselves and preen.
Mordecai looking around. I love his iridescent head.
The difference in appearance between males (drakes) and females (hens) is surely due to sexual selection. The females are well camouflaged in the grass, while males sacrifice some of that camouflage to attract females. We have no idea why females prefer yellow beaks and metallic green heads; the reason why females in different species prefer different traits is largely a mystery. (Of course there are some sex differences in traits, like antlers in elk and body size used for fighting in elephant seals, that are well understood; males win females–and offspring–by winning contests. Darwin called this the “law of battle.”)
Here they are both out of the water. Towards the end of this short video Mordecai engages in some stretching, which we call “duck yoga”. He also scratches his chin, though ducks don’t have chins.
Esther and Mordecai together on the edge. They’re both oiling their feathers. Mallards have an oil gland at the base of their tail, and they repeatedly dip their beaks in it and then spread the oil on their feathers to waterproof them. Hence the expression, “Like water off a duck’s back.” If you’ve ever seen a duck in the rain, you’ll see that the water just beads up and runs off their oily bodies.
The duck yoga video says unavailable this video is private. Please fix, I want to watch this .
It should be fixed now. I clicked the wrong button. Let me know if it still isn’t working.
I’m glad you fixed it because that’s the best one!
Esther does a lot of adorable head-tilts, and seems to be wondering, “who is that guy with the camera? What does he want?
[He wants to feed you corn and frozen mealworms.]
Agree. Loved the duck yoga! 🦆🦆🦆
Great to see!
🦆🦆🦆[ hey Apple, would it be too much to make a hen emoji?!]
“He also scratches his chin, though ducks don’t have chin.”
🤔 <—-😁
Great shots Jerry, they’re a gorgeous pair! I can’t wait for the ducklings.
It’ll be a while. She hasn’t yet nested, and once she does it’s about 28 days till ducklings ready to swim.
Nice!
Why do females prefer yellow beaks and green heads? Here’s a conjecture. Imagine that that there is originally no sexual dimorphism. Now imagine a rare male that happens to develop a colorful beak and head (doesn’t matter the color, but suppose they happen to be yellowish and greenish, respectively). Females might be attracted to that male because it distinguishes itself from other males.
Now the colorful male and a female mate. Among the offspring are genes for the male coloration—the genes for male coloration have increased in frequency. More females encounter such males and, they too, mate with them preferentially (for the same reason that the first female found the colorful male so attractive). More and more males with yellow beaks and green heads appear in the population and we’re off to the races.
Why yellow beaks and green heads? Maybe it’s because variants with those colors arose by chance first, and there’s really no advantage to yellow-ness or green-ness themselves. There was just a physiological pathway that allowed those colors to be produced during development. Once the genes for yellow beaks and green heads become fixed in the population, further sexual selection drives the beak and head color to the striking intensity that we observe today.
I agree that the invocation of sexual selection to explain sexual dimorphism in mallards is unsatisfying without an explanation of the preference that gives rise to sexual selection. Your hypothesis is that a distinctive color mutation (which merely happened to be a yellow bill or a green head) might have given some ancestral mallard drake an advantage in mating. But why should it have conferred an advantage rather than a disadvantage? (“Ugh, a yellow bill: what a freak!”) Perhaps it did so, but we would still need an explanation of the preference for a distinctive coloring.
I think you have an element missing. As well as a gene for green head and yellow beak in males, you also need a gene for preferring a green head and yellow beak in females. Then the two traits select for each other creating a virtuous circle. For example, in a population of green headed yellow beaked males, the male who is turned off by green heads and yellow beaks is less likely to mate. Conversely, in a population of females preferring yellow beaks and green heads, the males with the yellowest of beaks and greenest of heads will do better.
I’m not an evolutionary biologist, so the above could easily be utter nonsense but it seems plausible to me and it’s vaguely based on Richard Dawkins’ explanation of peacock tails in The Selfish Gene.
This is one scenario for sexual selection, although there may be a cost to preference genes for females (missing out mates). The process would stop when the male’s advantage is being more colorful would be counterbalanced by his visibility to predators. There are many scenarios for sexual selection, though.
The first photo of Esther, the second from the top in the set, really shows off the colour pattern in her feathers. We (or at least I) often think the hens are non-descript but they really are quite beautiful.
Oh boy! Ducks!
Thanks.
Thank you for sharing these wonderful photos. I’ve been missing the ducks and I’m glad they are returning to Botany Pond. Life is good.
I see to work on the second floor of a building overlooking a canal. My coworker and I liked watching the many mallards gathered there. We liked watching the males chase a female and mate and then do a little dance.
I love these two. And Mordechai’s metallic blue n green headdress sure is stunning!