Saturday duck report

There will be no Caturday Felid report today, though I have several incomplete versions in draft. Instead, I need to bring you up to date on Esther and her brood.

I am sorely behind in reporting on the “ducklings”—if you can call them that at their size—and tender this report showing the duckling and Esther up to July 1.  I have some good pictures and videos that will probably have to wait until my return, as adding them here would make the post too long. Some of them show the ducklings making some of their first flights, and I have one of those below.

But I’ll bring you somewhat up to today. Two of the six ducklings apparently flew away yesterday; their wings and flight feathers are certainly large enough to enable them to do that. After searching all around the area for the two errant ducklings, I’ve concluded that they’ve heeded the call of the wild and went off to live their lives as free ducks in Nature. It makes me sad—somewhat, I suppose, like a parent whose well-brought-up child has left for college. Or, as a friend says, I had the ducks “only on temporary loan from Nature.”

There are four left now, plus Esther, who may fly away too, but I”m hoping she’ll decide to stay and molt in the pond, renewing her feathers. That will render her flightless for a month, but at least she’ll be safe, well fed, and I might be able to see her when I return.  So here we go. . .

First, an artsy photo of flowers reflected in the pond, taken on June 18:

Mother Esther, one of the best duck mothers I’ve known.  Never once did she leave her brood alone in the pond, and was always watching and monitoring them. I will miss her. Perhaps she’ll return next year: I have photos of her bill pattern that I can use to identify her.

The brood, June 20. Six ducklings, with Esther out of the frame to the right:

The brood follow Esther by a “plant cage,” where reeds, water lilies, and water lettuce are sequestered under the assumption that the ducks would eat them if they were available:

Look how big they’ve become!:

There is a singleton hen who hangs around the pond and has become tame enough to approach me after I feed the brood. scarfing up whatever food I’ve spilled. Her vacuum-like behavior has inspired us to name her “Hoover”.  Esther and her brood don’t like her and chase her out of the pond if they see her. I feel sorry for her as she’s obviously not nesting (she’s around most of the time), so I try to give her a good feed on her own. Here she is, recognizable by her very dark bill:

A video of some ducklings nibbling grass on June 21. They seem to like some of the greenery around the pond, and you can see one duck pushing away an interloper:

One duckling standing. He (the olive-green bill suggest that it’s a male) is nice and plump, just the way I like them (note; they are not fat, but this is right after lunch):

One duckling sitting, resting its bill on its food-stuffed crop.

Starting about June 15, the ducklings were often flapping their wings, either for the joy of flapping or to exercise them for flying (the latter suggests that the experience is pleasurable, so it’s probably both). Here are two of the brood flapping away:

The video below shows Esther and the brood (she’s the light-colored one) walking along the pond, along with a bit of duckling wing-flapping. The “babies” are as big as mom.

Ducklings zooming and flapping: the first steps in flying. They’re also diving.

 

Semi-successful flight (sort of), the duck who can really take off is Esther, but I suspect she’s setting an example, prompting the ducklings to try their hand at levitation. You can see several of the brood actually lifting their bodies out of the water, so zooming has created a bit of lift:

Here’s a photo from June 18 of three ducklings “dabbling”, scouring the shallow bottom for food. (Yes, their naughty bits are showing.) Since they’ve started doing this, they don’t eat as many duck pellets, though they retain their great love of mealworms.  I’m certain that part of what they’re eating on the bottom is the algae that gives the green color fo the pond.

More dabbling. Mallards are informally called “dabbling ducks”. As Cornell University’s bird site notes:

Mallards are “dabbling ducks”—they feed in the water by tipping forward and grazing on underwater plants. They almost never dive. They can be very tame ducks especially in city ponds, and often group together with other Mallards and other species of dabbling ducks.

A group of dabblers. It’s hard to catch them all tipped forward at once, but it happens. They tend to congregate in small areas where the pickings must be good:

From June 29, a video of preening, dabbling, and grabbing at a leaf (latter at 0:31). I’m not sure whether that duck actually wants to eat part of the leaf or is just playing.

And we’ll end with more “artistic” reflections.  More to come, though it may have to wait until I return.