Category: ducks

Readers’ wildlife photos

October 15, 2026 • 8:15 am

Another batch of photos arrived this morning, this time from reader Andrew in Oz.  Andrew’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Yarra Bend, Melbourne, Australia

These photos were all taken in an hour or so, in a bit of bushland three miles (5 km) from downtown in a city of 3ish million people.

The Birrarung River (also, more commonly, known as the Yarra river). Melbourne’s main river. Often very brown – locally known as the river that flows upside down:

Pacific black duck (Anas superciliosa):

Dusky moorhen (Gallinula tenebrosa):

European honey bee (Apis mellifera). We sometimes call this the feral bee. In, I think, a River Red Gum, (Eucalyptus camaldulensis):

Black-faced cuckooshrike (Coracina novaehollandiae). A cute common name is the Shufflewing – when they settle after flight, they shuffle their wings alternately:

Spotted pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) – female. Tiny bright little bird – common but hard to see and identify. Today I was lucky:

Spotted pardalote (Pardalotus punctatus) male:

 Red-rumped parrot (Psephotus haematonotus). More usually seen on the ground in small flocks. Surprisingly well camouflaged in the grass – quite easy to almost step on:

Pied currawong (Strepera graculina). Common, beautiful loud meodious song:

Rainbow lorikeet (Trichoglossus moluccanus). One of the most common birds in eastern Australia. Incredibly bright and beautiful – and loud:

Noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala). Another very common bird. A few lines from a review (by noted biologist/author Tim Flannery) of the book “Where Song Began” by Tim Low:

The title of Australia’s most aggressive bird … must go to a rather drab gray member of the honeyeater family known as the noisy miner.

Accused in a scientific paper of “despotic aggressiveness,” the species has been recorded driving off fifty-seven rival types of bird. Indeed the noisy miner’s aggression has led to it becoming “one of the most important mechanisms through which habitat fragmentation and degradation threaten populations of eastern Australian woodland birds.” “They will turn on almost anything,” Low says: “koalas, cows, bats, pigs, snakes, lizards, people,” as well as other birds. And worse, they recruit allies in their bullying, including the aptly named butcher bird—a sharp-beaked, shrike-like predator that the noisy miners leave alone—provided they refrain from taking their eggs and young.

Noisy miners will even recruit humans as allies. Some years ago, a great fracas emanating from a mob of noisy miners outside my house in Sydney induced me to leave my work and investigate. As I stepped outside, the birds fell into silent expectation. Looking down, I saw a python. I got the distinct feeling that the noisy miners expected me to deal with it. But I like pythons, so I left it and returned inside. The howl of disappointed rage emerging simultaneously from dozens of beaks had to be heard to be believed. To get any peace, I was forced to move the snake.

The last duck post of 2026

September 30, 2026 • 9:30 am

Across the morning sky, all the birds are leaving. Ah, how can they know it’s time for them to go?

Yes, the birds of Botany Pond have left, and by that I mean Miss Duck’s brood of four ducklings have taken wing and flew away to who knows where. The good news is that they all fledged, even though the “good” mother had abandoned the brood over a week beforehand,—when the young weren’t yet flying. The ducklings were zooming and even taking off a bit, so as long as I could keep them fed and safe, I knew they’d be okay. They clearly missed their mom, and weren’t eating as much, but they stuck together and, around September 14, three of the four were gone.

That left one duckling, whom I named Rupert. I don’t know if his wings weren’t yet fully developed, or he hadn’t learned to fly, but he stuck around looking forlorn and disconsolate, sitting on the bank of the channel.  Here he is (the greenish hue at the base of his bill tells us he’s a male):

A sad duckling. He wouldn’t eat nor approach me, but mostly slept and rested on the bank of the channel.

But around September 19, Rupert was gone.  Hooray!

Of course I don’t know where they are, but I hope they found some other ducks who will migrate south with them. As for the wanton Miss Duck, if she ever returns she’ll get a stern lecture about staying with her babies until they fledge.

Here she is, with her long periscope neck and gray coloration. If Miss Duck returns, I will know her for sure (I also have close-up photos of her bill).

The brood a few days before they started leaving. I call this iPhone photo “Golden Slumbers” after the Beatles song:

I call these “ducklings,” but they’re clearly adults: freshly minted mallards. Ba

This one, with an orange hue at the base of her bill, is a female (a “hen”; the males are called “drakes”).

We had a bit of duck drama/trauma a few days before they left.  When I came to the pond, one of the females (below) was quacking continuously, and nobody would eat. I didn’t know what was going on. I asked someone on a nearby bench how long the duck had been quacking, and he told me that a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) had been standing in the channel a while back.

That was it! The young female (only female mallards make the classic “quack”) was freaked out by the heron, as these birds can prey on young ducklings. While herons can’t take a duck of this size, these ducklings had clearly evolved to react to a potential predator of the young. When I took the video below the heron was gone, but while I was watchingfor an hour it flew over the pond twice, and each time the female quacked loudly, and all the other ducks froze in place.  They stayed freaked out for several hours after I drove the heron away.

I learned later that the different calls have different meanings, and that this is a specific alarm call for predators (the differences among calls are small, and inaudible to most of us). The ducks know how to distinguish predators from harmless birds. When a heron or Cooper’s hawk flies overhead, even high up, they quack and freeze. If a crow, an airplane, or a goose flies over, there is no reaction. The marvels of natural selection!

Note that her wings are raised, too, something that the other ducklings did. I have no idea what that means.

How fast they grew! I’ve reversed the second picture below so you can see the difference between the brood at 1 day old and a little less than eight weeks old.

Note the bill color.  The two ducks in front with the grayish-green bill bases are drakes, the two behind, with orangish bills, are hens. (The drakes develop their color and patterns, including the green heads, while overwintering.) We had a 50:50 split this year.

And a panorama of our summer home, Botany Pond:

We musn’t forget the other critters. We still have six turtles, since we lost one but two were added. Here’s one clambering painfully onto the rocks to get some sun. They are strong! (This took place during the heron-induced QuackFest, so you can hear some quacking in the background.)

And my squirrels, who grew quite tame. They clambered onto me to get nuts, and several even let me kiss them. They will be here this winter, as will the turtles, but we won’t see the latter as they’ll be dug into the pond bottom overwintering.

A smooch:

And so the latest Duck Year drew to a close. We had five broods, two of which wandered away after harassment by horny drakes, one of which we captured with a fence below their nest, but had to take to rehab when we couldn’t capture the mother, and one of which got mired in the algae, with three ducklings drowning, while I saved five and sent them to rehab.  It was depressing, but then Miss Duck had a late brood in July and allowed us to bring a brood up from hatching to fledging. (The drakes had left by then.)

All the birds are leaving—the Great Duck Migration south is beginning in the Midwest—but perhaps one of them will return. I won’t recognize them unless Miss Duck is the one who comes back. And she faces a talking-to!

The golden days of the ducklings: photos and videos

September 14, 2026 • 9:45 am

I expect the ducklings to start flying within ten days or so, as they’re zooming around on the pond and, as you can see below, are getting some elevation, so that their bodies are out of the water but their feet are still in it. These are their Golden Days, and I think they’ll soon be leaving.

At any rate, Miss Duck is still absent and I don’t expect to see her again. I doubt she was the victim of a predator, as I cannot find any signs of predation (blood, feathers, carcasses, etc.) near the pond.  And although she deserted her babies, she was a good mother up to near the end, and her four offspring will have the chance to contribute to the mallard gene pool.

Here she is with one of her babies. Look at that neck! We think of it as a kind of periscope that she extended when looking around. And, thanks to the miracle of genetics, all four ducklings also have relatively long necks.

Some photos of her offspring. They are all but adults now.  One is looking up, as you can see by his tilted head.  I’m told that the females have orange on their bills (the two to the left) while the males lack orange but have a pale yellow color (two to the right):

Here a Boy Duck is quacking, but males can’t make the classic duck quack, which is limited to females. Males make a sort of gutteral quack-grunt that is lower in volume:

The two males. They won’t develop their characteristic color and pattern (green head, white neck ring, etc.) until they overwinter.

But despite their bad behavior during mating season, the males are still beautiful.

It was hot on this day, and two of the ducks are doing gular fluttering, which is not panting but a rapid form of fluttering of the throat that evaporates moisture and cools the bird. The second duck from the right is looking up, while the one on the extreme left is sleeping with its nictitating membrane closed:

Lately the ducklings aren’t as keen for the food I give them, and my theory (which is mine) is that they are doing more dabbling in the water, sticking their bills in the substrate to get a mouthful of food which they strain out through the serrations on the edge of their bills. They are also foraging more on land, which I like because tmust learn to be wild ducks without a nice man to feed them.

They often stick their bills in the dirt around the pots of plants installed in the pond. Here’s a video of them doing it (humans are discussing a book in the background):

I expect that they’ll fly for real (i.e., bodies and feet out of the water) within a week or ten days.  They are flapping their wings a lot and, after meals, zoom across the pond, occasionally levitating their bodies out of the water: a Wright-Brothers type of flight.

Here’s a big flap. You can see that the wing feathers aren’t full-sized.

And four instances of zooming between September 9 and September 11. You can see their bodies leave the water occasionally:

Wing flapping, which develops their flight muscles:

You can never predict when they’ll zoom, but it’s much more likely after meals, as if they’re celebrating a good feed. You can also hear a quack, which is clearly from a female.

Here’s a good case of the zoomies which took place last Friday. People who stop by the pond and see this have no idea what’s going on. Keep watching as they zoom several times in this clip. There is another quack near the end.

How they’ve grown!

September 13, 2026 • 11:00 am

I have a passel of new duckling photos and videos that I’ll post soon. In the meantime, I wanted to show how much the “babies” have grown. The first picture of Miss Duck’s brood was taken on the second day after hatching, July 20. You’ve seen this before:

And here they are in a similar pose a week ago (Sept. 6). They’re even bigger than than this now, and their wings and flight feathers have grown. I think they’ll be flying in some way within ten days.

And no, Miss Duck has not shown up after she abandoned her babies. We’ve rescinded her award of Best Duck Mother of All Time, though the orphan babies are doing very well.

Readers’ wildlife photos

September 12, 2026 • 8:45 am

Please send in your wildlife photos as this is the last batch I have!

Today we have bird photos from Jan Malik showing avian denizens in the “wilds” of New Jersey. Jan’s IDs and descriptions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. Note the DUCKS at the beginning and in the penultimate photo.

I’d like to present my natural backyard, the Meadowlands in New Jersey. This is an expanse of tidal marshes and phragmites reeds, formerly used as city dumps. It was more or less that desolate swath of land where Pete Clemenza instructed his enforcer: “Leave the gun, take the cannoli.” Nowadays, this land is in the process of active reclamation and on its way to becoming aquatic parkland.

In spring and summer, DeKorte Park is teeming with ducks; here are a male and a female Green-winged Teal (Anas carolinensis):

There is a large flock of Ruddy Ducks (Oxyura jamaicensis) that stays each year in the same cove:

Every year, many Northern Shovelers (Spatula clypeata) visit the marshes. Their bills certainly look like spatulas:

American Black Ducks (Anas rubripes) also move through the area and possibly even breed in more secluded areas. They are close cousins of Mallards, and hybridization occurs fairly often (as evidenced by the green brow on this male); however, the species manage to stay separate due to their selection of nesting sites and preferred diets:

There are too many wading birds to list, but here is a Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus):

And a Lesser Yellowlegs (Tringa flavipes):

Midges and mosquitoes can sometimes be a nuisance:

But we have an efficient pest control crew, like this Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor):

Large wading birds are numerous; here is a Great Egret (Ardea alba).

A strong local colony of Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) has a prominent presence here. As long as nesting platforms are available and polychlorinated hydrocarbons are absent, these birds will thrive:

Among songbirds, we have native sparrows, like this White-throated Sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis):

As well as introduced ones, like this male House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), which has taken up residence in an all-American nesting box:

We have too many songbirds to show them all, but as a final one, here is an American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis):

Every summer, we have our crop of youngsters, like these American Robin (Turdus migratorius) chicks:

Or these ducklings—I think they may be Black Ducks, not Mallards:

I’ve realized now that I have collected too many bird pictures from this region and have short-changed all our lovely mammals, insects, turtles, shellfish, and fish—the latter, sadly, largely inaccessible to a photographer. But I would be remiss if I didn’t include this view, which has been visible on this specific September day for the last 25 years. The World Trade Center site’s light beam tribute is visible across the Hudson, and its aesthetic quality must not cloud our understanding of what it means: that on one sunny September morning in 2001, we were deprived of Francis Fukuyama’s comfortable utopia of universalism and thrown into Samuel Huntington’s world, where others look at our treasured values with disdain and a desire to destroy them:

Miss Duck has left the pond

September 7, 2026 • 11:35 am

For reasons I don’t understand, Miss Duck left Botany Pond three days ago and has not returned. There are no signs of a predator attack, and my best guess is that she just felt it was time for her to leave. Unfortunately, she leaves behind the brood of four, who seem quite discombobulated without their mom around. The only good part is that they’re seven weeks and one day old, and will be flying on their own very soon.

The brood hangs around together as they have all along, but seem aimless, and their appetite is definitely down. I am not too worried, but I do feed them as much as they can handle and I talk to them as they do know my voice. (I learned today they can recognize it over the telephone.)

I don’t know if I’ll ever see Miss Duck again, but she proved to be somewhat of a worse mother than we thought. Maybe she’ll return next spring; if she does she’ll get a stiff lecture (but after a big meal). I have some duck pictures left to post, but that will be later. For the time being, here is Miss Duck (when she was on the Pond):

New Botany Pond videos and photos, featuring Miss Duck and her Brood of Four

September 1, 2026 • 8:30 am

It’s time for another report on the ducks of Botany Pond. (No turtle report today, but we now have six after two new ones were put into the Pond.)

The Brood of Four, having hatched on July 18 and entered the Pond the next day, are thriving, as you can see below. They have turned into miniatures of Miss Duck, though a bit smaller and lacking their flight feathers. But they are vigorous, healthy, and have good appetites. They have been on the water six weeks and two days, and should be making the first tentative efforts at flight within two weeks.  Miss Duck is doing well, too, and is as attentive as always, though she allows her brood somewhat more independence than before (they often swim all over the pond without alarming her.)

Look at these lovely “ducklings” (click photos to enlarge them, and also enlarge the video):

All the photos and the video below were made at the end of August. Here’s a duckling looking happy. It doesn’t yet know that it will soon be flying.

Often Miss Duck and the brood repair to the edge of the pond for a nap after a meal. Here she is alone, waiting for the ducklings to join her. People love to watch the ducks, as you can see below. Sometimes I have to tell people not to get too close to the resting mallards lest they disturb the naps.

Very often now Miss Duck and her brood engage in zooming after a meal. It looks as if they’re having fun, and they may well be, but I think this is also preparation for flight. Miss Duck often leads the way, flying in a short hop in front of her brood. They zoom along towards her, flapping their growing but still ineffectual wings.  Listen for the “quack” in this two-minute video, and be sure to watch the whole thing, as it shows dunking, flying, and zooming.

. . . and a few action shots of Miss Duck splashing in the water and preening:

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Preening:

Preening in focus:

Soon they will be flying, and perhaps flying away, and I’ll feel like a parent whose kid has gone off to college. I will be, literally, an empty nester.