fleming@acsu.buffalo.edu (christine m fleming) (02/15/91)
Why haven't the Mallard ducks gone (further?) south this winter? I live in Buffalo, NY, and we have several pairs that have decided to stick it out. They are in a big pond when it is not frozen over, otherwise, they swim in a small stream that MAY be a part of the universities' heating plant... (the water isn't WARM, but, it doesn't freeze over.) (We're having a wildy shifting winter, so sometimes it is actually nice, but other times i wonder what they eat...) These ducks APPEAR to be the ones that were hatched last summer. Are they uneducated, and don't know to go south? Or is it a completely instinctual thing, and they are just being rebels? (....;)...) What are they probably eating, and is it "o.k." to give them bread, etc. (If they are the past year's babies, they probably don't know any different, as people around here are always feeding them. But, does this make them TOO tame, and therefore at a greater risk from humans/hunters? They will follow people, but, only if there is food involved, and i took point blank pictures of them.... so, they are already tame.) Also, IF they are last summers chicks, will they have chicks this summer? (I assume that their parents will be back as well, so there will be some babies, but, if they (all the chicks) stop migrating, will the pond cease to be a hatching place?) One last question: Do the male and the female usually tend the nest, or is it only the female's job? If so, does the male usually feed her? (Last summer one duck nested in the shrubbery near the office door, and she never seemed to leave the nest. We took to feeding her a little, and one woman would spash water on her, claiming that she was thirsty. She didn't seem to mind the bath...) Thanks... ...jones --