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Male and female mallard: special features

Author avtor Reading 7 min Views 3.8k. Posted 05.05.2014

One of the most numerous, accessible and worthy trophies of spring hunting is the mallard drake. Are all the features of the life of this feathered bird known to us? Indeed, in order to rationally use the objects of our hunting, it is necessary to have a maximum of information about each species, including information about their diseases. nine0005

Content

1. How the spleen
2. “Front outfit” moves
3. Personal life of birds
4. duck ducks
5. Threats and pests
6. How the ONDATRA SITS DOLS
7. DO NECAL

CRIEN MOVEN plastic look of ducks. They can nest in both fresh and brackish water bodies. But one of the main preferences and requirements are shelters overgrown with greenery: reeds, cattail, willow, sedge.

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Mallard drake is slightly larger than the female, the weight of individual individuals reaches 1.5-2 kg. It swims very beautifully and nimbly, it does not actually dive for food. But, being wounded, it can overcome tens of meters under water. At the same time, not convinced of its safety, it usually exposes the tip of its beak above the surface in order to replenish the air reserves in the lungs.

Moves freely on the ground in a calm situation, waddling from side to side. However, sensing something was wrong, it can run quite quickly. Despite its solid weight by the standards of ducks, it is able to take off almost vertically from the water. nine0005

“Fair Dress”

Mallard drakes cannot quack like ducks, but emit a peculiar zhyakka. The coloration of the male is truly royal. In late autumn, they change their summer camouflage outfit for the multi-colored attire of an irresistible groom: the head and neck are bluish-green, the lower part of the neck is outlined by a white collar. The chest and sides of the drake are dark brown, the belly is pale gray with a delicate frost pattern.

Several pairs of tail feathers and rump nicely curled up. The blue-violet wing mirrors are edged with black and white stripes. It is impossible to confuse such a gentleman during hunting in the spring with the plumage of the mallard female, modestly painted in reddish-brown with mottled. nine0005

Paws of young first-year drakes are orange-red with darkish membranes. With age, the color becomes even more juicy and rich. The paws of adult males are usually bright red.

It is easy to distinguish a drake from a female even in early autumn, when he is not yet dressed in breeding attire. The beak of the male has a greenish-yellow color. But in the female it is brownish-yellowish, covered with small black freckles.

Personal life of birds

In the spring mallard drakes arrives from wintering more than ducks. Therefore, it is often possible to observe fights of loving boyfriends who dispute the right to be near the female.

However, drake nests are usually not done. They do not take part in incubation of the egg laying. Upon arrival at the nesting site, the female, as a rule, seeks to retire from the annoying cavalier.

After all love games are over, mallard drakes gather in groups and hide in hard-to-reach places (swamps, forest blockages of rivers and lakes) to change their colorful plumage into a “camouflage” summer-autumn outfit. As a result, by the opening of the next hunting season, only an experienced and observant shooter can distinguish a male from a female. nine0005

But the drake does not wear such a “hiding suit” for long. By October, old males are already putting on a new marriage attire.

Diet of ducks

Mallard’s diet is quite varied, but the advantage is juicy green parts of surface plants, seeds and bulbs of duckweed, sedge, cereals, etc. nuts. These birds do not refuse animal food – aquatic insects, various larvae, crustaceans, mollusks. nine0005

The palatability of mallard meat also strongly depends on the characteristics of the diet. For example, it acquires a creamy aroma from those ducks and drakes that, during the harvest years in the summer-autumn period, feed on the sown fields and eat large quantities of pine nuts.

Mallards are the first waterfowl to arrive in spring and are among the last to leave for the winter. Usually they migrate to warmer climes on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and India. At the same time, cases were recorded when mallards wintered both in Siberia and in the Northern Urals – in water bodies with a warm current and a rich food supply. nine0005

Threats and pests

Foxes, raccoon dogs, gray crows and other predators are considered natural enemies of drakes and ducks. In addition, on my own rich hunting experience, I was convinced that the ubiquitous muskrat has a huge negative impact on mallard nesting, with all the ensuing consequences.

The American musky rat, brought to the territory of the USSR back in the 30s of the XX century, meticulously does its job of exterminating waterfowl. It would seem, in what way? But in fact, everything is simple. nine0005

Exploring all the rivers and lakes in huge quantities, the muskrat eats away all the vegetation, absorbing not only its above-ground (above-water) parts, but also the entire root system. And all knowledgeable hunters know that a duck needs an abundance of thickets in order to raise its offspring.

If there is no vegetation, there is no nesting. As a result, the remains of small broods are exterminated by various kinds of predators in water bodies not protected by greenery.

How the muskrat survives ducks

In order not to be unfounded, I will tell you with a clear example how everything happens. The place where I live is replete with various minerals, including alluvial gold. Accordingly, measures are being taken to extract it. As the work is completed and the used land is reclaimed, a winding corridor of a devastated territory is formed along the riverbed with fresh seedlings of coniferous trees and a series of small settling ponds connected to each other. nine0005

Two years later, they begin to become overgrown with sedge and cattail, and to a lesser extent with reeds. Simultaneously with the greenery, a huge number of river ducks appear: mallards, broad-nosed, teal, etc. However, the riot of vegetation also attracts the enemy of birds – the muskrat.

It is enough for her to destroy all the water “greenery” within 3-4 years, and completely, not even leaving roots. With the loss of vegetation, the duck also disappears. And the rat has to switch to feeding on coastal plantings and algae. And such cycles are often repeated – I have been observing them for many years. nine0005

Decoy duck

Spring hunting for mallard drakes is very colorful and emotional. For the most part, it comes down not to prey, measured in kilograms, but to obtaining aesthetic pleasure and vivid impressions. After all, there is nothing more colorful and joyful than nature and its inhabitants awakening from a long winter sleep.

Drake hunting with decoys is carried out on spring floods. Mallards are grown and prepared for work in advance. This requires a fairly large amount of knowledge on the content and use of “live bait”. If you have not yet figured out the flight route of the game and you do not have a decoy duck, you need to contact the hunters or organizations involved in this work. nine0005

Despite the apparent simplicity of the whole process, it is not always possible to get a drake. It all depends on the weather conditions, the place of hunting, the device of the sneak and the precise actions of the decoy duck. Be careful not to accidentally shoot your assistant.

Don’t pick up the caught drake right away, you will lose precious time, because morning and evening dawns are short. At sunrise, hunting, as a rule, is more successful. At the same time, it is necessary to sit in the hiding place before dawn. It is also worth considering that drakes fly better in quiet warm dawns than in windy and cold ones. nine0005

Happy and exciting hunting everyone!

Note to hunter

Particular attention should be paid to possible diseases in ducks. Birds are threatened with infection with avian influenza, which affects the digestive and respiratory organs and, as a rule, leads to death.

Ducks and drakes can also suffer from neisseria, a disorder of the reproductive system.

If a mallard develops parvovirus, the bird will become lethargic, it will show retardation in growth, feathers will fall out of the wings and back. nine0005

Trichomoniasis is a parasitic disease of ducks. It is characterized by damage to the intestines and liver of birds. Sick ducks usually sit, ruffled and spread their wings, do not eat, often drink.

Helminthiasis is a disease that is often seasonal. It is usually observed from May to July.

Ducks often also have a lice (as the people say, “lice”).

A number of other diseases and parasites can be found in birds. Therefore, having obtained a bird, one should carefully examine it for visible violations in its physiology and development. A good heat treatment of game is also necessary. This is a mandatory precaution. nine0005

Oleg Kosach , Krasnoturinsk

Reproductive behavior of ducks. Created nature through the eyes of biologists. Behavior and feeling of animals

Reproductive behavior of ducks

Marriage ritual. In some species of ducks, the care of the offspring falls entirely on the female, while in others, the male also takes an active part in the care of the offspring. And most importantly, ducks keep their couples and loyalty to each other for life. nine0005

During the mating season, the behavior of birds, like many other animals, is distinguished by a special expressiveness of postures and movements. Males demonstrate the brightness of plumage, sometimes accompanying the ritual with sound signals. Sometimes the females answer them. Thus, the drake of a wild mallard duck emits a low quack and a sharp whistle, while the female has a more diverse vocal repertoire. It consists of several variants of quacking sounds.

Especially for the ceremony of courting the female and displaying the wedding attire, the body of males at a certain time begins to produce pigments of bright colors. Then, according to the pattern laid down in the genetic memory of the bird, the miracle of purposeful coloring of feathers occurs. For example, unlike the modestly dressed mallard females, for the drake, the “brush” of the ingenious Heavenly Artist from generation to generation with the help of a wide palette of colors creates a unique color. These are shimmering and iridescent green plumage of the head, reddish-brown chest, smoky-gray sides, black rump and white tail. The same “Hand” neatly outlines the white collar ring and shiny mirrors on the wings. But as soon as the period of mating games ends and the females sit on the eggs, the drakes purposefully turn on the process of molting in order to become like females – it’s safer. nine0005

A fantastically beautiful spectacle is also the courtship of male ducks of the Chinese breed, called mandarin ducks. A crest and elongated golden feathers protrude on the head of the male, and bright yellow feathers on the sides, similar to sails when unfolded. And although the female is painted in modest olive-brown tones, several handsome males are looking after her and trying to win sympathy at once.

Marital fidelity. Observations show that married couples of ducks, including mandarin ducks, are able to show unfailing fidelity to each other. nine0005

If a drake is kidnapped, the duck responds to the courtship of other drakes with indifference and flatly refuses to establish new family ties. And sometimes even dooms himself to starvation. But how joyfully the spouses meet, if the seized drake is returned, the duck will rise to life again. However, the return will not end there.

There is evidence that the returned drake somehow learns about the proposals made in his absence to his mate by other drakes. And aspirants can suffer greatly from his rage. So it seems that we are not talking about ducks, but about Odysseus and his faithful Penelope. nine0005

It is interesting that the ability to form the same tender couples and similar fidelity is often shown not only by anseriformes deprived of spouses, but also by parrots, female peacocks, turtle doves of some species, reed tits, garden warblers and many other birds. Separated from a friend, they doom themselves to a celibate life, refusing a new union, despite the numerous courtship of males.

Nest preparation. Nobody teaches a bird to build a nest. And yet, when she first starts building it, she does it as deftly and skillfully as all the birds of her kind. After all, the small head of each bird contains the hereditary programs of both the construction of the body and the behavior of the individual in different situations, including reproductive. It takes into account all the main (basic) behavioral acts. So, the instinct makes the anseriform parents to line the nests with a layer of their own fluff to protect the eggs from hypothermia. An example is the eider, which plucks its unique “eiderdown” from its chest and abdomen, which is considered the best insulating material. The layer of this reddish-gray fluff is diligently laid by the duck not only under the eggs, but also on top of them, so that you can occasionally leave the nest. At the same time, eggs not only cool more slowly, but are also less visible to predators. nine0005

For a long time, people have been using the down of these northern sea ducks in products that need to be very warm and at the same time light. The heat-insulating properties of down, taken from the nest, are especially high. It is only sad that the active collection of fluff, eggs and predatory shooting of the birds themselves adversely affect their numbers.

Caring for offspring. In contrast to the bright drake, the female wild duck has a gray-brown color. Her body purposefully produces a modest outfit with a patronizing color, which ensures the safety of the hatched offspring. This allows the duck to hide among last year’s brown grass. After all, she arranges a nest on the ground, under the cover of swamp grass and shrubs. nine0005

Ducks do not have to worry about feeding their babies, because from the second day of life they swim with their mother and are able to get food themselves. Her main concern is the protection of offspring from numerous enemies. And the duck has a lot of enemies – these are birds of prey, and foxes, and otters, and hunters.

To protect the babies, the duck often uses a special technique – it takes the pursuer away from the nest, pretending to be sick or injured and gradually moving away from the place where the ducklings were left. When a predator or a hunting dog chasing her rushes to grab a bird, she suddenly takes off and quietly and imperceptibly returns to her brood in a roundabout way. nine0005

But the mandarin duck leads an arboreal lifestyle and breeds chicks in hollows. Therefore, ducklings, having a day of age, have to jump out of the hollow to the ground. Like other tree ducks, mandarin ducks for this lifestyle are endowed with sharp claws that help to stay on the branches, as well as a long wide tail, a kind of brake, when landing on the ground or on branches.

Cuckoo duck. The only one in the family of anatids that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds is the black-headed tree duck. But unlike cuckoos, newborn ducklings do not throw their adopted brothers out of the nest, but feed with them until they get stronger and leave the nest. nine0005

The chicks of this amazing duck appear in the nests of not only other waterfowl, but even hawks. So, the black-headed duck living in the Andes lays its egg to the eggs of the chimango hawk. Apparently, the birds feeding the foundling perceive it as their own and thus ensure the safety of the chick from the attack of other predators.

The role of mother duck communication with chicks in the egg. The chicks of many birds exhibit expedient behavior even while still in the egg. One or two days before hatching, they begin to squeak, and the mother answers them with a special sound signal. Why do kids need such negotiations? nine0005

Firstly, the communication of the chicks with the mother allows the chicks to remember her voice long before they are born.

And secondly, the ducklings exchange information between themselves and their mother when to start pecking the shell in order to hatch from the eggs all at the same time. After all, the female does not lay eggs in one day, and therefore the babies in them differ significantly from each other in age. The voices of older chicks and the voice of the mother encourage those who are still behind in development. Then their metabolism increases, and the younger ones begin to catch up with the older ones. For example, in the nest of a wild duck there are from 8 to 15 eggs. She lays them one a day. And although the age difference between the younger and older ducklings is at least a week, they will all hatch within 3-8 hours. nine0005

Studies have shown that the process of hatching chicks in an artificial environment lasts almost two days instead of several hours. Why?

It would seem that the incubator is warmer than the nest, there is more fresh air and a specially designed device turns eggs more often than a duck does. But it turns out that ducklings lack the coordinating quacking of their mother. They also do not hear signals from older brothers: the testicles do not touch each other and the weak voices of the babies are not heard at such a distance. nine0005

In the course of the experiment, duck eggs were laid in a dense pile and connected by a two-way connection to the nest of a wild duck. And when it was time for the ducklings in the incubator to squeak, an adult duck immediately answered them on the microphone. As a result, both in the nest and in the incubator, the ducklings hatched almost simultaneously.

In order to make sure that the conversations between ducklings and their mother allow babies to remember her voice long before they are born, the following experiment was carried out.

A group of hatchery ducklings, who had never heard the voice of a mother duck before, were placed in an arena where two stuffed ducks moved. From the speaker built into one of them, the voice of a man was constantly sounding, calling “to me, to me …”, and from another stuffed animal the voice of a real duck called them behind him. And it turned out that the ducklings were divided almost equally – one reached for an artificial duck speaking in a human voice, and the same number of kids ran after the other. That is, ducklings, developing in eggs with complete silence, are not able to decide by voice who is closer to them. nine0005

Then the duck eggs were placed in different incubators, where the same voices sounded – in one incubator, the shelled chicks heard the uninterrupted call “to me!”, and in the other – the quacking of a duck. And then almost all hatched babies from the first incubator preferred a stuffed animal with a human voice, and from the second – a quacking duck.

Consequently, ducklings, like many other chicks, receive their first lesson in the “cradle”-egg.

How to remember your mother’s appearance. nine0034 It is very important that babies are endowed with the ability to distinguish their mother duck from many very similar ducks, and this is not so easy. But their brain is arranged in such a way that if the learning process takes place in a certain period, then skills are acquired at lightning speed and lessons are remembered for a long time. This is how it happens, for example, with small goldeneye ducks, which arrange their nests in the hollows of large trees at a height of about 15 meters from the ground.