Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
It breaks my heart to have to report this, but somehow Vashti and her brood of seven ducklings vanished from Botany Pond sometime after Tuesday morning, and have not been seen since.
I have no idea what happened. They were last seen at the pond during Tuesday’s morning rain showers, with the brood warmly tucked under Vashti’s belly. Now: no ducks—not a trace. The only one left is Armon, who swims disconsolately around the pond and refuses food. He has lost his family.
It was probably not predators: no bodies were found. I’ve ascertained that no workpeople were in the pond during the week. Either someone scared them away or they walked away, something that hasn’t happened before.
Whatever is the case, the ducklings will probably perish, as the nearest body of water is too far away for little ones to walk.
The members of Team Duck and I are devastates. The seven ducklings were healthy, Vashti was being a great mother, and even Armon stepped up to protect the brood. The invading undocumented drakes left the brood alone. Everything promised a great duck season, and I was looking forward to helping the little ones grow up into adult mallards.
That, it seems, is not to be. This portends to be The Year Without Ducklings.
It was a rough morning on Botany Pond. Two undocumented drakes invaded this morning, and I must have spent 45 minutes chasing them around with my squirt gun. They would leave (along with Armon, who always returns), but then come back again. When they are around they will harass Vashti, even driving her off the nest, and that’s not good.
Finally Armon and Vashti were left alone, but I don’t want the undocumented ducks coming back. Also, when chasing the errant drakes away, I accidentally spooked the wood duck pair, who have taken off. I was sad because I love them so much, and I hope they return. (They’re clearly not yet nesting.) Armon goes after invaders, but not with great vigor: he’s a bit of a wuss.
But now all is quiet, and we had an epochal event a few minutes ago: four of the five red-eared slider turtles we put into the pond last fall (retrieved before Botany Pond was renovated) showed up, and all were competing for space and sun on a small rock. There are other rocks they could use, but they like the one below. I suspect the fifth turtle wandered away from the Pond at some point. This is the first time I’ve been able to see more than three turtles.
Please allow me to show you pictures of my children, which this year comprise a pair of mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) and a pair of wood ducks (Aix sponsa). The latter don’t seem to be breeding here as they’re on the pond most of the day, and because female wood ducks nest in tree holes, and we ain’t got any.
The female mallard, named Vashti, is nesting nearby, but I’m keeping her nest location as secret as I can as I don’t want people disturbing her while she’s incubating her clutch of seven eggs. I expect a hatch about April 19 or so. The male mallard, named Armon, patiently awaits Vashti, who comes down to the pond once a day to have a big feed and a bath and preening session. Those sessions last about 15 minutes, but Armon, a lovesick drake, patiently patrols the pond for about 23 hours and 45 minutes per day.
The wood ducks are absent in the mornings but then are at the pond most of the rest of the day, which tells me that the wood duck hen is not sitting on eggs.
But have a look at these gorgeous wood ducks: feathered jewels. I’ve added a few photos of our resident turtles, red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans). Of the five we put in last fall, I’ve seen two or three. The other turtles must have either died during hibernation or simply walked away from the pond.
Below: the wood duck pair, whom I haven’t named as no names suggested have seemed appropriate. This is an example of extreme sexual dimorphism, as you can clearly see. Why females chose males with those patterns, colors, and a crest is something we don’t understand. But it’s clearly another example of sexual selection in birds, something that ultimately devolves to the difference between the sexes in gamete size and investment. (Yes, there are two sexes in all of these animals.)
Do click on the photos to enlarge them.
The male. I can’t get enough of seeing him and marveling at his beauty. The only other wild duck to rival this phenotypic glory is that of the male mandarin duck (Aix galericulata), a species found in East Asia. Wood ducks, however, are natives here.
He has satanic red eyes, but really is very gentle (also quick and much smaller than a mallard):
Here’s a video of the male and female wood duck having their lunch at Botany Pond:
Wood ducks seem quite romantic to me. They are always very close to each other and sometimes the male nuzzles the female.
I need names! The hen:
They are quite plump, as I ensure that they never go hungry.
Armon doesn’t really like the wood ducks, but somehow knows to chase them halfheartedly, as you see him chasing the male wood duck here. When an undocumented drake flew into the pond last Saturday, and began chasing Vashti off her nest (he was clearly eager to copulate), Armon went after him big time. With the help of Armon, a lot of running and yelling, and my trusty Super Soaker, I finally managed to expel the intruder. Here Armon goes after the male wood duck, who is much faster and more agile.
This is my favorite picture of the pair. They both have their heads cocked, probably looking at something above like a hawk. Ducks have eyes on the sides of their heads, and so must cock them if they want to see above. It’s very cute when they do that, and rare to see a pair do it simultaneously:
The hen has iridescent feathers, too, but they’re less conspicuous and usually covered by the wings. They are probably byproducts of the colors that are exaggerated in males. You can see some of them below:
Have another picture of my boy:
The male woodie standing on one leg, doing his flamingo impression. (Ducks do this to conserve heat, and this was a chilly day.)
As I said, Vashti is incubating her eggs, but she comes down to the pond for about 15 minutes per day for a nosh and a bath. Here’s part of her preening session, which is quite vigorous. Shortly thereafter she flew off to her nest. Note that Armon stays nearby, as he gets only a few minutes per day with his mate and lady love.
And we mustn’t forget the turtles! On warm days they come out of the water to soak up sun on the rocks, extending their limbs to get as much heat as possible. We call this “turtle yoga.”
The long claws tell us that the one below is a male (they use the claws in courtship):
The woodies seem to fly in every day about 11 a.m. and are still here when I leave about 2. I still have no names for them, as nothing suggested struck the right chord. Here’s a preview of the next set of duck photos, which will concentrate on the wood ducks as Vashti is nesting.
Feel free to suggest names, which should reflect the fact that they’re perky and gorgeous. (The last pair was named “Frisky” and “Ruth”, with Ruth having a Jewish name.)
Yep, my babies are trotting around in the snow. Fortunately, they have a kind patron who feeds them twice a day. Armon and Vashti are still here, and what reason would they have to go, given that they are fed two big square meals a day: nutritious duck pellets for main and tasty freeze-dried mealworms for dessert?
They are looking good, and Vashti seems positively plump.
It appears that the bonded pair of mallards at Botany Pond are here for the long term. Every morning they are waiting at the same spot for their breakfast, and in the afternoon they snooze on the rocks but swim to me for their late lunch when I whistle. Further, I saw two of our five red-eared slider turtles yesterday, swimming and sunning in the warmer weather. Here are a few photos and a video at bottom.
It seems that the ducks are residents now, and so it’s time to name them. As with last year, they appeared on the Jewish holiday of Purim and thus needed Jewish, Purim-related names. My friend Peggy Mason, co-duck-tender, scoured the Purim literature to give the ducks names (we don’t name them until we’re sure they’re going to hang around). The hen (not Esther, as I ascertained from photos published previously), is now called Vashti, named after a character in the Purim story:
Vashti (Hebrew: וַשְׁתִּי, romanized: Vaštī; Koine Greek: Ἀστίν, romanized: Astín; Modern Persian: وشتی, romanized: Vâšti) was a queen of Persia and the first wife of Persian king Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, a book included within the Tanakh and the Old Testament which is read on the Jewish holiday of Purim. She was either executed or banished for her refusal to appear at the king’s banquet to show her beauty as Ahasuerus wished, and was succeeded as queen by Esther, a Jew. That refusal might be better understood via the Jewish tradition that she was ordered to appear naked. In the Midrash, Vashti is described as beautiful but wicked and vain; she is viewed as an independent-minded heroine in feminist theological interpretations of the Purim story.
That seems fairly appropriate given that there’s no other woman in the story save the heroine Esther, who saved the Jews.
A name for the drake was tougher, as the only other notable male in the Purim story is the wicked Haman, who tried to get the King to exterminate the Jews (Esther foiled that plot). And we can’t have a drake named after a genocidal maniac. Scouring the story and remembering her Hebrew, Peggy suggested the name Armon, which means “palace” or “fortress” in Hebrew. That’s where the whole Purim story took place. Fortunately, it’s also a Jewish man’s name, and short.
Ergo the hen and drake are now Vashti and Armon, respectively. I’ll have to do some explaining when visitors ask me the ducks’ names and how they got them. But it is cool that last year’s and this year’s ducks both arrived on Purim, though the holidays are two weeks displaced from 2025 to 2026.
Click the pictures below if you want to enlarge them.
Aaaaaand. . . here’s the pair together. I think they make quite the handsome couple:
The lovely Vashti, hopefully destined to produce this year’s brood of ducklings. Here she’s preening, sunning, and sleeping in the warm sun of Sunday:
And the regal Armon, swimming and napping:
We put five large red-eared slider turtles (Trachemys scripta elegans) into the pond last fall, and hoped they’d hibernate in custom turtle houses put on the pebble-y bottom. Apparently they did, as we’ve seen no bodies floating on the water. (These were five turtles saved and put in a southern Illinois pond when Botany Pond was renovated several years ago. I believe five more evacuees will come home again this Spring.)
It’s been too cold for them to show up, but yesterday I found a big one blithely sunning himself on a rock, stretching out his limbs to get the sun. (Turtles’ heads and legs are their solar panels, used to warm up the body.) Later I saw another one’s head above the water surface as it was swimming around. So we know we have at least two. Here’s the sunbather:
This is near the northern limit of the species’ distribution, as the eggs can’t survive very cold winters.
So we have our turtles and ducks: all is in place for a lovely Spring and Summer.
And a lousy movie of Armon and Vashti preening themselves after having lunch:
More good news: I’m told the duck camera, which has been re-installed, will be activated this week. Stay tuned for the link!
This morning a friend who works in the department office called me and said “there are two ducks in the pond.” I instantly knew that this would be a male/female pair of mallards scoping out the pond as a potential nesting and rearing site. Within one minute I grabbed my camera and my container of adult duck food (I saved it from last year; I have plenty and it’s still good), and ran down to the pond.
Sure enough, there was a pair of mallards at the far (south) end. Moreover, then swam near me when I whistled, though they didn’t come right up to me. This suggests that these are the mallards knew me, though, based on bill patterns in the hen, I don’t think they are Esther and Mordecai from last year.
Those ducks were named because they arrived on the Jewish holiday of Purim, and, sure enough, that holiday is tomorrow. These are again Jewish ducks and will have to be named accordingly.
I am so happy. There is no guarantee they’ll stay, but food is thin on the pond, and I am making sure they know it is a place to get a nice meal. After filling their tummies, they retired back to the south end for a rest.
Photos. First, the pair (name suggestions welcome, especially Jewish-themed names—but not Mordecai and Esther):
The hen:
The hen eating (out of focus). They were hungry!
The drake, dripping water from his bill after having eating a food pellet (I give them only the best):
The hen’s bill:
This is Esther from last year. The bill pattern of today’s hen is clearly different, so the hen we have now is not Esther. But there’s no guarantee that this one will breed here (remember, Esther was our first ground-nesting female). Note that today’s duck lacks Esther’s black markings on the top and tip of her bill, and those should have remained over a year.
