Two ducks in still water |
Simply Living
When I saw a pair of ducks in the lake, I thought I knew
what they were.
“Mallards,” I said to myself reflecting upon childhood memories.
When I was young, I often saw mallards swimming in the lake
next to my Pennsylvania home. Male
mallards have bright green iridescent plumage on their heads and necks in
contrast to the plainer – some might say drab-colored females.
Each of the two ducks I saw swimming in my Florida lake
resembled female mallards. Both were dappled
shades of brown and tan, although one of the ducks seemed slightly darker and its
bill was a bit more brightly colored.
The two ducks look alike |
I considered the possibility that both birds were females
but the way they were acting – one bird standing guard while the other bobbed
for food – as well as the guard’s darker plumage and yellower bill, made me
question their identity.
I was right to be doubtful.
It turns out the two birds were not mallards but a closely
related species called Florida mottled duck that lives year-round
(non-migratory) in Florida’s freshwater and brackish marshes. Like the mallard, it’s a ‘dabbling duck,’ because
it trawls along shallow water skimming aquatic plants off the surface instead
of diving for food and disappearing completely underwater as other ducks do. Periodically, the mottled duck bobs under, submerging
just its head and neck to feed.
While one watches, the other duck submerges its head underwater in search of food |
About 40 percent of the mottled duck’s diet consists of snails,
insects, small fish and other aquatic animals.
The rest of its food comes from the roots and stems of plants, seeds,
reeds and even berries.
Mottled ducks aren’t ‘regulars’ on our lake like the heron,
great egret, tricolored heron or ibises, but for the past week or so I’ve noticed
them while rowing. They tend to swim
close to the shoreline and do their best to stay as far away from me as
possible. If my rowboat passes too close,
they take flight.
It could be that I’m seeing them lately because they’re ready
to have babies. Mottled ducks nest
February through July in stands of tall rushes, reeds or palmettos close to
shallow water lakes. They select a site
close to a lake, hollow out a space amidst the dense vegetation then line it
with soft down. The female lays 8 to 10
eggs that she incubates for just under a month.
A day or two after the eggs hatch, the entire family leaves land and takes
to the water where the parents show their offspring how to skim the surface for
food and how to “duck” their heads underwater to find aquatic edibles.
I’m not surprised I initially misidentified them. The two species look so much alike, even
mottled ducks get confused. Interspecies
mating (hybridizing) between mallards and Florida mottled ducks has happened so
often in recent years, pure-breed Florida mottled duck populations are in
decline. The resulting offspring of
hybridized pairs are fertile, which perpetuates the problem.
Both sexes of mottled duck look similar to female mallards but not at all like the brightly colored male mallard (picture credit: http://www.adventuresofscatman.com) |
Mottled ducks and mallards haven’t always interbred. In the past, they didn’t crossbreed because
mallards that migrated to Florida in the winter flew back north prior to mottled
duck mating season. That changed when more
and more Floridians began raising mallards and releasing them in local
waterways.
Feeding wild ducks contributes to changes in migration patterns (photo credit: http://www.thewoodlandseventblog.com) |
Instead of returning to
northern climes, domesticated mallards stayed in Florida year round and bred
with local populations of native mottled ducks.
In Florida, the release of mallards is illegal but people still do it
and interbreeding continues.
I had no idea when I spotted two rather ordinary looking
ducks swimming in our lake I was gazing upon critters whose amorous activities
can contribute to the extinction of an entire species.
That’s a hefty price to pay for a little
wild(life) sex.
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