Category: ducklings

Tuesday duck report

August 18, 2026 • 8:30 am

Allow me once again to enchant/bore you with photos of my babies. The ducklings were one month old on Saturday, but they entered the pond the next day, so their official “monthiversay” as pond denizens was Sunday. They’re in their second month now, and are rapidly growing feathers and longer wings. By the end of another month, they’ll be on the verge of flying.

First, some photos and then two short videos. (Click the photos to enlarge them.)

Miss Duck continues to be a terrific mother, always in attendance with the brood. Here she is overlooking them last Friday as they rested after “Second Lunch” (they get fed three times a day). They’re now too large to all fit atop the Sacred Rock that you can barely see peeking over the pond edge in the middle, and so they must rest on the edge itself.  They are now large enough to leap up to the edge.

Note the feathers; they are looking like miniature ducks:

The family resting yesterday on the west side of Botany Pond. The “babies” are together and Miss Duck, of course, is nearby.

Below: a close-up of three babies, who get more and more feathered each day. I’m now told that you can sex the babies with fair accuracy by looking at their bills. If they have yellowish-orange corners, they are supposedly female, while black or brown corners denote males. According to that lore, the duckling on the right is a female, and the two others drakes.

In the photo just above (click to enlarge it), there appear to be two hens and two drakes, with the two hens being the middle two babies. A nicely sex-balanced brood.

And, just to remind you, here they are just a month before, at two days old. How they’ve grown! I needn’t add how much joy these changes bring to me; though they lose their cuteness, they become functioning ducks who can fly off and see the world.

And let’s have a hand for Miss Duck, Mallard Mother of the Year.  Here’s a closeup from the group sitting above. Note that the distal corners of her bill are orange. The dark color of the bill, with an orangish tip, will be a diagnostic phenotype I’ll look for next year when hens return to the pond. She also is more grayish than most hens, which usually have a brown cast.

This is Honey the Duck from 2023, looking more brown (and also more spherical):

The video below was taken last Sunday after Second Lunch. Although the ducks are usually full then and head to the south island for a postprandial rest, they are often a bit frisky for a short period and dunk, swim underwater, and zoom in the water. Here the whole family, including Miss Duck, gets the zoomies, apparently set off by Miss Duck taking flight at the beginning.  Then the babies zoom after her and, when she flies back, zoom in her new direction.

Their little legs and feet must be paddling furiously when they go this fast; I’d love to have an underwater video of these zoomies. Note 12 seconds in when two ducklings flap their stubby little wings. Little do they know that those stubs will soon be carrying them up to the sky!

This short video shows Miss Duck pecking at both a turtle (1 second in) and then a fish (11 seconds in) at feeding time. Neither species poses a threat to her or her babies, but I guess in nature some turtles (like snappers) and some fish are dangerous to the brood. Miss Duck, not knowing the difference, is, I think, following her evolutionary imperative and simply driving away anything of a size that could have been dangerous over evolutionary time.

And a screenshot from the PondCam showing visitors admiring the turtles on the north island and the duck family arrayed on the east side of the Pond. Be sure to watch the PondCam from time to time; you might even see me at feeding time (6:30 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. or thereabouts, all Chicago time) giving the ducks their comestibles.

Saturday duck report

August 15, 2026 • 8:15 am

I haven’t been able to post duck photos or videos for a while as I changed computers (orders of the University, which is a bit authoritarian about such things). Anyway, a crack IT guy helped me restore things, and I have some pictures and photos to post. More will be coming as I get up to speed.  But today I want to show you how much my ducklings—or rather, Miss Duck’s ducklings—have grown.  Today is their “monthiversary”, as it was four weeks ago today, on Saturday, July 18, that they hatched, and they first entered Botany Pond the next day.

Miss Duck laid five eggs in her nest on the ground, situated in a niche of the Student Union. I learned of her nest from a student, who reported it to me two days before hatching. It was bloody hot then, and I left a pan of cold water by her for two days.  I hadn’t seen Miss Duck for the entire month she was nesting, and if she came to the pond for food or water, I didn’t see it. She must have had a rough 28 days of incubation, which is one reason I now spoil her and her brood.

Miss Duck laid five eggs, and four of them hatched. I took the unhatched one and put it under a heat lamp for several days, but no dice. The egg must have been infertile.  But she led four healthy babies all the way around an adjacent building and into Botany Pond, where I first saw them early Sunday morning, July 19.  By then the drakes had gone, and I had great hopes that this brood would stay until fledging. And—knock on wood—so it will be.

Here are the four on July 20, only one day after they came to Botany Pond.  They were adorable. I treasure this as one of the best duckling photos ever. (Click all photos to enlarge them.)

They are still adorable but now, four weeks later, they are going through what we call their “awkward teenage phase”as they shed their duckling down and start growing feathers, In another month they should be about ready to fly.

They are all healthy and vigorous, and Miss Duck (named because we ran out of monickers) has proved to be one of the best duck mothers I’ve seen—right up there with Honey the Duck.

Here is a photo taken yesterday, with mom and brood sacked out on the edge of the pond after lunch. Miss Duck is keeping guard nearby, but is also catching a few winks (she doesn’t sleep for more than a minute or so before waking up to check on everything).  You can see the mixture of feathers and down on the babies: they’re starting to look like miniature ducks.

I often wonder, when I see Miss Duck and her brood, if she feels a kind of happiness or satisfaction, or if she’s just acting according to her genetic dictates, and feels no emotion. We’ll never know, but I like to think that if her brood were removed or disappeared, she’d feel bereft. That itself indicates a kind of satisfaction with taking care of her babies.

Here’s a full and tired duckling. Note the stretched leg and the tiny feathers on breast and wing:

Head shot of the baby above:

And the lovely Miss Duck. She’s proudly displaying her conspicuous speculum (the blue bar on the wing feathers). Miss Duck is distinguishable by her long neck, her grayish color, and her dark black bill with an orange tip.  I hope she returns next year.  Her brood is very late (they usually appear at the beginning of May), suggesting that she re-nested after some unfortunate circumstance.  She is not one of the hens who nested and came to grief earlier in the season.

I love to hang out at the pond after I feed them all (three times per day); it’s very meditative to watch the ducks, even when they’re sleeping. So many people walk by, see them, and pull out their phone for a quick shot, but I would like to tell them to hang around a while and actually watch the animals. There’s a lot to learn, and I’m often there to explain things. In fact, I get so many questions from visitors that I’ve though of preparing a FAQ sheet to give to people.

People have been generally well behaved around the ducks and do not bother them, so they’ve gotten pretty used to people. I worry a bit about that if they migrate, for it may marginally affect their chances of getting shot, but they’re sufficiently wary that my worry is not large.

Since I have no kids, my genetic legacy resides in the DNA of these mallards, and nearly a hundred others that I’ve helped raise over the years.

Duck update: videos

August 8, 2026 • 9:15 am

Today we have mostly videos of the ducks (I’m waiting for my photos to transfer to a new computer, and changing computers is always a horror). Photos will be coming. But in many ways the videos (about 1 minute each) give you a better idea of what the ducklings are like.

In short, the four ducklings are peachy, and growing very fast! You’ll see from the videos and two photos below that they have just started growing feathers on their tails, on their little stubby wings, and on their sides. In about ten days they’ll be in their awkward, scruffy teenage stage: half duckling, half adult. But I love them all.  They are fat, happy (I think), and lively, and Miss Duck is taking great care of them. But look for yourself:

The caption of this video tells the tail; it’s the end of their mealtime when they get freeze-dried mealworms as dessert. That is their favorite nosh. Miss Duck looks on, supervising but also eating on her own. When ducklings are around, she always ensures that they eat before she does. She’s a great mom.

After a meal the family often repairs to what I call the Sacred Rocks, a place where they can nap and preen in the shade. Miss Duck is always watching over the brood, usually from above:

Sometimes they repair to another rock: a flat one at the north end of Botany Pond. This is quite close to a pair of benches where people sit to watch them (as well as the turtles, who occupy the rocks when the ducks are absent).

The caption:

Look at this fat little duckling, crop distended with food! (I feed them well.) His/her little black foot is sticking out, like duckling yoga. In the past two or three days, their feet have changed color from black to the adult orange. Botany Pond, the University of Chicago, August 6, 2026

Here’s the caption I gave this video. Be sure to listen for Miss Duck’s soft quacks meaning “Go away, turtle.”

Miss Duck does not like turtles, though they are harmless to her and her brood. My guess is that she has an instinct to avoid them, as in the wild some turtles, like snappers, can hurt or kill ducklings. You can hear her quack from time to time as a response to the red-eared slider sharing this rock. (The brood pays turtles no mind.) Botany Pond, The University of Chicago, August 6, 2026.

The caption:

The ducklings love to dabble (root around) in the dirt, especially in the plant pots whose contents have died. (The ducks do not eat the plants.) Here you can see their feathers developing, mostly on their stubby little wings, as patches of brown. Their tails are getting feathers, too, and resemble little paintbrushes. Botany Pond, the University of Chicago, August 7, 2026.

Here’s one shot showing the incipient feathers. It’s so exciting: they’re not even three weeks old. I think they’re past the vulnerable stage now, which makes me happy. Can you see the tiny brown feathers on their wings and on their sides? Notice also the orange feet.

Finally, I noticed that when I was feeding the brood from the bridge, a sparrow was picking up little duck food pellets and broken mealworms, feeding them to her importuning baby. Life is burgeoning at the pond.

August 1 ducks

August 2, 2026 • 8:15 am

“How is the Duck Family doing?”, you ask.  They’re peachy—couldn’t be better. Today is the two-week anniversary of when they came to Botany Pond, and Miss Duck and her Brood of Four are healthy, happy (as far as I can tell), vigorous, and certainly well fed.  You’ll see below how the babies have grown: they now have pointy tails, are at least twice as large as when they came to the Pond, and soon will enter their awkward teenage phase as their feathers start to come in.

All the ducks know me and come to me when they see me at the pond; I don’t even have to whistle for them. I am their Human Food-Vending Machine.

For two of the last three mornings, they were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs leading from my building to the Pond, and when they saw me they came waddling and strutting up. As you can see below, the babies were peeping and Miss Duck was making soft quacks because she wasn’t quite sure of my intentions. I herded them to the water in the channel, as I always feed them in the water—it makes less mess if there is uneaten food. (The fish and turtles get it quickly in the water.)

Miss Duck, unlike other hens I’ve tended, is frightened of the large turtles, quacks when they approach (the babies don’t care), and swims away from them. She feints at them with her bill, and sometimes at the fish as well. But I manage to get enough food in them all to keep them fat and growing. (They get fed three or four times per day).

So here’s what greeted me yesterday morning when I came to the Pond about 6:30 a.m. You can hear me speaking to them, as a duck expert told me that they will also recognize my voice. Although my vocal timbre changes, I don’t speak to them like one who speaks to a child, for I think animals should be addressed as adults.

Sound up on all videos.

After breakfast in the channel, the family invariably swims back to the main Pond, deciding to settle on one of the three or four rocky spaces where they can dry off, rest, and digest. Here they first try the “Sacred Rock” in the NW part of the pond, and then settle on the big flat rock between the benches.

Look how they’ve grown!

Yesterday morning there were fairly heavy rains, but the ducks were all dry when they came for food after the rain stopped. I have no idea where they go to stay dry, as when it rains heavily you simply can’t look over the Pond in person without getting drenched. Here they are after the rain in a screenshot from thePondCam. Can you find Miss Duck and her ducklings?

Finally, a first yesterday: a rabbit appeared at the Pond. Though Hyde Park is full of Eastern Cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus), I have never seen one at Botany Pond. If it hangs around I may try to feed it, though I’m wary of that Cooper’s Hawk who sometimes comes by.  The arrow points to the bunny.

I’ll do my best to provide updates, but I just changed Big Computers and that always causes problems and stress, in this case with uploading pictures and videos. Stay tuned: you will not miss the ducklings growing up!

The latest from Botany Pond

July 30, 2026 • 8:15 am

All is well on Botany Pond. The four ducklings abide, and are growing, healthy, and eating well. Miss Duck is still a great mother, though every few days, when the ducklings are sleeping on a rock, she’ll fly away for 45 minutes or so. Where does she go? Is she just exercising the need for airspeed? I often wait anxiously by the Pond for her return, and feed her as a reward for returning.

In a first of all mother hens I’ve tended, Miss Duck is afraid or wary of turtles, quacking softly when one approaches and feinting towards them with her bill. They do not notice her, and she apparently hasn’t learned that they’re harmless.

Here are a few snaps.

First, a predator nearby! I sent the out-of-focus photo of this raptor to two friends, both of whom identified it as a young Cooper’s Hawk (Astur cooperii). It was only about twenty feet from the brood lounging on the rock. Miss Duck quacked at it, but she made no attempt to flee.  One friend, an ornithologist, said this:

That hawk is a curious case because I think it has a mix of two year old (gray) and yearling (brown) feathers plus I am guessing it it partially leucistic (all the white bits). Based on shape I suspect Cooper’s hawks and they are serious bird killers so a duckling is a distinct possibility for its dinner. For a Cooer’s hawk the eye is also very pale and I wonder if that is also part of being leucistic?

Of course I chased it away; it’s out of focus because I was nervous when I photographed it.  I haven’t seen it in the past three days, but I think there’s a nest of these guys (or perhaps of red-tailed hawks) supposedly in the Quad nearby. The “serious bird killers” part disturbs me. Fingers crossed. Yes, hawks gotta eat, but not my ducklings! In all the years I’ve tended ducks, we haven’t lost any to predators, though one disappeared from a brood a few years ago.

The hawk looks intent, but of course raptors always look intent.

A few more photos of the brood resting. Look at the leg sticking out from the duckling on the right!

They are starting to look more like adult ducks, though there’s a long way to go (they won’t be flying until mid-September at the earliest).  Another leg is sticking out in the photo below.  They also have pointy tails and their heads are getting smaller relative to their bodies.  Note that they’re well fed!

The stripe through the eye on both adults and ducklings intrigues me, and I can understand it only as a way to camouflage the eye—an indicator of the head that predators may use.  I asked Grok, which emitted this answer:

  • The eye is often a conspicuous, shiny target. A strong horizontal dark stripe through it blurs or conceals its exact location from a distance, making it harder for aerial or ground predators to lock onto the head.
  • Combined with the mottled brown body plumage, the stripe acts as disruptive coloration: it interrupts the smooth outline of the head so the bird blends better into reeds, grasses, mud, or water edges.
  • This is especially critical for nesting females (who sit exposed for weeks) and for ducklings, which are highly vulnerable right after hatching. Sources specifically note that the ducklings’ eye stripes provide excellent camouflage in the wild.

Mom et brood resting on the edge of the pond in a shady area (it was hot two days ago).  Note that Miss Duck also has the eye stripe:

Finally, the pond is now full of dragonflies, and although Miss Duck tries to catch them, they are too fast for her. I’ve seen a duck catch a dragonfly only once. I don’t know the species of this one, but perhaps Mark Sturtevant will oblige:

Duck update

July 27, 2026 • 9:30 am

All the ducks are doing well: the four offspring of Miss Duck are getting larger and have developed visible necks and tails. Yesterday was their “weekiversary,” as they came to the pond on Sunday, July 19.

Miss Duck is taking good care of them. It was wicked hot yesterday, but they survived by immersing themselves in cool water as well as sleeping most of the day. Here are a few snapshots from Sunday, including one video and two turtle snaps.

The lovely Miss Duck.  While I love all hens, she is an exceptionally pretty and graceful one, possessing a long, slender neck:

Head-on shot:

A thriving duckling:

A video of the brood swimming, dunking, and diving after lunch:

And we musn’t forget our four turtles. Miss Duck is afraid of them, pecks at them underwater when she can, and quacks and moves away when they’re swimming nearby.  But when the ducks are on the rocks, the turtles avoid basking there.  I guess they harbor a mild dislike of each other, but there is no real animosity.

Here are three doing “turtle yoga,” stretching out their necks and limbs to catch the sun:

And one of the red-eared sliders. I believe it’s a male based on the long front claws.

The Gang of Four (and mom) are doing great!

July 23, 2026 • 8:45 am

I am pleased to report that the Gang of Four (now five days old) have made it with flying colors through another day at Botany Pond. Today they are five days old. They are vigorous, healthy, and have a hearty appetite, as does Miss Duck, their watchful mother.  She’s proving to be an excellent mom, and I like to think that they’re all content, if not happy. I have high hopes that they’ll all make it to fledging (mid-September at the earliest).

Here’s a video of the ducklings eating. The big pellets are for Miss Duck, the little ones for the babies. Everyone gets crushed-up mealworms.

More lunching with the family. People love to come by at feeding time. It’s at 1:30 pm today (the last of three feedings), and if you’re one of the women from the Regenstein Library or the Dean of Students’ office, be prompt!

After lunch yesterday, the ducklings, who are quite vigorous, jumped up on a big rock abutting the north end of the Pond. I didn’t think they could make it, but they all did. Miss Duck overlooked them from the pond ledge. Below is a passel of photos as well as two more videos:

Mom stretches a wing and raises a leg:

Babies perching and jockeying for position on the rock.

More:

Babies napping:

Now everybody takes a nap. It lasted nearly an hour before the ducklings decided they’d had enough and jumped into the pond. Miss Duck, of course, had to follow.

When Miss Duck preens, the babies do, too. I was doubtful whether babies imitate the mother, but now I have no doubt that they do.