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Ducks In Disguise

For a couple of years I observed a strange phenomenon at this time of the month.

How to explain countless – OK, let’s say about 60 – birds sitting close together along the lake. I don’t usually see that many of any avian creatures. This was even harder, however, for identifying marks seemed quite lacking.

They didn’t look like pigeons – though, come to think of it, the years I did see pigeons, there were only one or two and they came from a neighbor’s barn. Once the barn was torn down, the pigeons disappeared too.

But now so many, many more together than any bird, land or sea, that I’d expect to encounter. And all a blah blur of not much.

I don’t remember how I first surmised these were mallards. Not too many weeks ago I gaped in wonder as a mother choo-chooed across the lake with seven in close tow. I know they’re here, though seen more frequently in the spring when the males are choosing their mates. I know too that a hen, possibly two, will frequently nest in close proximity to a sitting goose. Mallards, however, seem far shyer. The geese continue to enjoy water and land, floating, sleeping, munching. It is rare in July or August to see any mallards at all.

So what suddenly brings them and in such unimaginable numbers, decked out as if in disguise?

Turns out that’s pretty close to what is actually going on. Going incognito, in fact, makes them less conspicuous to predators during molt.

I knew geese lost their flying feathers when the kids came, a way to keep the family together. Now I read that all waterfowl, along with grebes and loons, lose all their primary and secondary feathers in one feel swoop. Whew!

Featherless (or close to it) they can’t fly, a sorry state of affairs that will last about a month.

I learned too that a full-grown feather is a dead structure. It can’t grow further so has to be replaced at molting time. (However, if a feather is lost between molts, a replacement begins to grow at once.)

I don’t know how the others cope but male mallards are able to grow a special set of feathers to cope with this lack. Formerly called “eclipse plumage” and now referred to as “basic plumage,” these are in essence a coat of camouflage. If you can’t be seen, you can’t be caught and eaten. They develop an intentional scruffy appearance, ending up mostly brown and resembling the female.

There’s a nagging message here. Are the females considered of such less value that the guy has to attempt to look like her to save his own neck? What then of the gals? Treated poorly from the first spring urges, now they apparently can be sacrificed if need be while dad, hoping his true colors are well-hidden, hopes to survive for another year.

In most ducks, only the female cares for the young. The male normally deserts the hen early in her incubation period. Then he soon begins his molt. Females have to wait to begin their postnuptial molt, after the nesting season is over. At about the height of this molt, both lose all their flight feathers at once and are unable to fly for a few weeks or until the new flight feathers are grown. Meanwhile they escape their enemies by swimming, hiding among marsh plants or diving below the water’s surface.

For migrating birds, complete molt is adaptively timed, coming when food is still plentiful but after the energy demands of the breeding season are over and before the energy demands of migration have begun.

By the end of this month the male has regrown his tail feathers and will be able to fly again. And back come those brightly colored body feathers which make the mallard drake such an eyesome wonder.

Let him then become the sitting duck again.

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Susan Crossett has lived outside Cassadaga for more than 20 years. A lifetime of writing led to these columns as well as two novels. Her Reason for Being was published in 2008 with Love in Three Acts appearing last year. Copies are available at Papaya Arts on the Boardwalk in Dunkirk and the Cassadaga ShurFine. Information on all the Musings, the books and the author may be found at Susancrossett.com.

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