Jaci Dawn

My walking partner talks about the ducks as if they were humans. This pair is a married couple and she is certain it is the same pair we see every day, the pair that prefer the company of geese to the company of mallards.

I wouldn’t know if it is the same pair or not: the ducks and geese move around a lot. Chances are, it is the same pair more times than not – but unless we had them tagged somehow, how would I know?

What I do know is they are not husband and wife. That drake there has no attachment to the hen except that she is a convenience for his randy feelings. And she has no feelings toward him except that he is the fertilizer for her hoped-for brood of ducklings. Once she goes broody and sets herself down on a nest, that drake will wander off, possibly to find another hen or another drake to hang out with doing bachelor things. His work is done: he looked pretty, flashed his bright green feathers, and did a gay little dance on the water with her.

She doesn’t care: she’ll sit on the eggs and maybe some will hatch. Then she will lead them off to water or to graze on lawns or to waddle across the busy thoroughfare (hopefully stopping traffic). She is a single mom duck, even now, sitting here next to Mr. Handsome Green Head himself.

Mallards are not monogamous.

The geese, on the other hand, mate for life. They are husband and wife. They will not hang around the business park when she gets all broody, but will find a suitable place where they can build their nest high enough to watch for dogs, coyotes, foxes, opossums, raccoons, and people. We won’t see any goslings until they have traded downy feathers for flight feathers and mastered the art of landing in water.

But the mallards: we may see mama out with her babies and we will count the babies in the morning and note how many make it into the afternoon. The crows, the cars, the drain grates, rats, opossums, and raccoons take their toll and do it rather quickly.

In the few years that I have worked in the business park location, we have watched two broods make it (mostly) to duck adulthood, the drakes looking like hens until just before fall when they start getting the plain grey plumage on their backs and the brilliant green heads.

I look at the mallards while my coworker addresses them as husband and wife. What goes through my mind is something less-charitable, but, then: this is how they are made. Putting human mores onto them is rather stupid. They do not want us to think of them as anything more than what they are: a drake with flashy green feathers and a hen with her perfectly mottled camouflage.

It is probably a blessing Mr. Flashy Green Neck doesn’t hang around to draw attention to her and the mottled brown ducklings that will hatch out of the eggs. She’s going to have enough trouble as it is.

And that is my take on ducks.