Maybe I need to rename this blog Weird Animal Factoids. So far I’ve only ventured into squirrel, dog, cat, baboon, and of course, human behavior. However, when Hotrod made his appearance, mouthing off about my precious Edgy Devil Duck, I decided to stick my toe into the neighborhood lake.
So, to satisfy your ever-questing, curious minds, a few ducky delights:
1. Swans, geese and whistling ducks typically mate for life. Most other ducks pick a new mate once per year, though in the animal world, that’s considered monogamy (makes sense, really, to define monogamy as mating and sticking together long enough for the offspring’s birth before moving on–happens all the time with humans).
2. Though most ducks nest on the ground, Wood Ducks nest in trees, sometimes directly over water, but other times up to a mile away. After hatching, the ducklings jump down from the nest tree and make their way to water. The ducklings may jump from heights of up to 290 feet without hurting themselves.
3. Duck’s quacks do not echo. No one knows why.
4. Queen Elizabeth II of England has a rubber duckie in her private bathtub that has an inflatable crown.
5. If you have a child, at some point in his or her young life, he will yell: “Look Mom, a f**k. A f**k.”
6. Jacob M Braude said: “Always behave like a duck–keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.”
7. For the best duck, go to a Chinese restaurant, preferably one in London.
My duck knowledge just increased by 100%.
Up until now it was just something I did to avoid objects being thrown.
I contest that the best duck to be found is at a Chinese restaurant. The French know how to cook some duck…trust me on this! I love duck confit in its various forms and incarnations. Mmmmmm! Duck is as common there to cook and eat as turkey is here. Mousse de canard is excellent; I’ve also had slow cooked duck in a myriad of wine reduction sauces that have made me orgasm upon the first bite.
Very interesting especially the part of queen elizabeth II
Duck quacks don’t echo because they are usually on open water with nothing for sound to bounce off from!
Obtaining duck meat, at least in the US, is a bizarre ritual involving a very early morning, snow, hip-boots, wading in water that is just above freezing, waiting for the sun to rise, and then not hitting any of the birds you shoot at because you’re numb from the cold.
I have rubber duckies in my bathroom.
Um, Kira, want to go out to dinner sometime? I’m just asking since I haven’t ever had duck that I liked enough to do a Meg Ryan.
EM, I’m loving your recent “Call of the Wild” sort of posts. Maybe next you could find out why my youngest daughter wants to be a monkey…or is it my youngest monkey wants to be a little girl?
Di
No, Ptaak, even like in a deserted, haunted house, they don’t echo. In a canyon, they don’t echo. Duck’s quacks are the only sound known that can’t be made to echo. How weird is that?
Kira’s engaged, Di, to a sexy, young French man. I imagine you could eat them both for dinner.
“Mating for Mallards is not simply an act of procreation. In fact, it is part of the ritualized pair bonding. It may occur several times a day for months prior to actual egg laying.
This up, down, up, down head nodding gesture is a mutual agreement of sorts. It signifies the pair’s commitment to mate.
When a sufficient amount of head bobbing has taken place, and the female is ready, she will stretch out her neck and allow the drake to mount. To help keep his balance, the drake bites the back of the hen’s neck.
After copulation, the drake does a victory swim around the female, while she performs a ceremonial bath and wing stretch.”
I love the “victory swim” bit…
So, in the picture we see six duckies swimmimg around the red one, what does that mean SC?
We are one short of having the Seven Ducks needed to make this a fairy tale.
Well, there was something that popped up on Google about some species of duck that mated via…
Well, let’s call it a big group hug.
SC, I am not responsible for you spending half the day googling duck mating rituals, kay?