Wild duck

“ The wild duck, which must constantly be on the alert for enemies, and uses its wings so much more extensively and its legs comparatively less than the domestic duck, is a much more intelligent fowl than the stupid, well-protected domestic one. The wings of the wild duck are stronger and its legs shorter than those of the barnyard duck. It has been shown that in the wild duck the brain is nearly twice as heavy in proportion to the body as it is in the comparatively imbecile domestic duck.
Many other useful illustrations of disuse, such as the cattle and goats in India, that have dependent ears ”

“ No one who knows the self-forgetting devotion with which the birds brood will be surprised that it is possible to come so near an eider-duck sitting in her nest, but it may well excite the astonishment of even an experienced naturalist to learn that the duck suffers one to handle the eggs under her breast without flying away, and that she does not even allow herself to be diverted from her brooding when one lifts her from the nest and places her upon it again, or lays her on the ground at some little distance in order to see the charmingly quaint way in which she waddles back to her brood. ”

“ The wild duck's nest is usually placed on the ground in some sheltered spot close to still or running water, and the ducklings swim like corks, soon learning the proper use of their flat little bills in gobbling up floating insects and other waterlogged food. Occasionally ducks nest in trees and they have been known to take possession of a deserted rook's nest. ”

“ The common Duck is of two kinds, the wild and the tame, the latter being but the same species altered by domestication; the difference between them is very trifling, save that the colour of the Mallard, or male wild Duck, is constantly the same in all the individuals, whereas the Drakes, or tame ones, are varied in their plumage. ”

“ This is especially true of the dusky duck, more generally known by the name black duck among hunters. He is indeed a wild duck, so wild that one must study him with a gun, and study him long before he knows much about him. An ordinary [Pg 56] tramp with a field-glass and eyes wide open may give a rare, distant view of him; but only as one follows him as a sportsman winter after winter, meeting with much less of success than of discouragement, does he pick up many details of his personal life; for wildness is born in him, and no experience with man is needed to develop it. ”

“ Many people put all their wild ducks' eggs under hens, and do not allow the ducks themselves to sit. I think this is a mistake, as nature gives to ducks far greater powers to hatch their own eggs than she gives to hens. The daily bath, already alluded to, and the mass of warm soft feathers, greatly assist in generating heat, and in preventing the eggs from getting chilled.
The old duck treads more lightly when going on to her nest, and certainly breaks far fewer eggs than the hen does. ”

“ The sentiment or feeling awakened by any of the aquatic fowls is preëminently one of loneliness. The wood duck which your approach starts from the pond or the marsh, the loon neighing down out of the April sky, the wild goose, the curlew, the stork, the bittern, the sandpiper, awaken quite a different train of emotions from those awakened by the land-birds. They all have clinging to them some reminiscence and suggestion of the sea. Their cries echo its wildness and desolation; their wings are the shape of its billows. ”

“ Meade King rightly takes exception to the inclusion of the Wild Duck in the list of species breeding in London. I do not know of any place within four miles of Charing Cross where the Wild Duck nests, or is at all likely to nest. The birds on the Serpentine are perhaps the wildest of all the London park Ducks, but they must all be considered semi-domesticated. Even after the annual slaughter of parti-coloured specimens, I doubt whether of the birds lefc, more than half are coloured like wild birds. ”

“ The chief difficulty confronting a host who desires to give his guests good sport lies in the fact that it is no easy matter to get young hand-reared wild ducks to fly well, and I propose in this chapter to endeavour to show how it can best be done.
I say young birds, as I think it will be admitted that wild duck, if shot in late October or November, will nearly always fly well. Many sportsmen will, however, for various reasons, not want to keep their birds so long, either on the score of expense or for fear of their straying from home. ”

“ Dixon remarks, "that the duck had not at this time become a naturalised and prolific inmate of the Roman poultry-yard." The origin of the domestic duck from the wild species is recognised in nearly every language of Europe, as Aldrovandi long ago remarked, by the same name being applied to both. The wild duck has a wide range from the Himalayas to North America. It crosses readily with the domestic bird, and the crossed offspring are perfectly fertile.
Both in North America and Europe the wild duck has been found easy to tame and breed. ”

“ The flock comes and goes several times, and circles about repeatedly to give the place a thorough examination. If nothing disquieting appears, it descends in an oblique flight, grazes the surface of the water with the tips of its wings, and then swims to the middle of the pond, far from the shore where the danger would be greatest. Nothing, then, is more difficult than to catch a flock of wild ducks off their guard. The hunter has recourse to a ruse and turns to his own account the friendly relations that always exist between the tame duck and its brother, the wild duck. ”

“ In a smooth sea and fine weather duck seem to prefer to go to bed, which they do in the daytime, on the sea. But in rough weather the majority will find out any quiet places on fresh water where the presence of other duck prove to them that there is safety. For this reason some half-tame wild duck are a great attraction to the really wild ones, but the former can be only kept at home by good feeding, for wing-clipped fowl are no attraction to the really wild birds. ”

“ No. 8 does not appear to the writer to do much damage to a coming duck unless it catches him in the head and neck, and then it is fatal, and that is all that can be said of No. 6, which has so much less chance of hitting the vitals. There is a very well developed horror of plastering, and that is the reason why No. 4 is very popular for wild duck. ”

“ Wild ducks, or mallards, are very abundant in marshy places, and are a source of great profit. They are in some parts shot by means of a long gun which will kill at a greater distance than usual, because the duck, besides being very watchful and timid, has a keen sense of smell and hearing. ”

“ Trustfully the duck waddles after him or rather after her piping offspring, and a second, third, tenth nest is thus emptied, in fact the work goes on as long as the basket will accommodate more nestlings, and one mother after another joins the procession, exchanging opinions with her companions in suffering on the way. Arrived at the sea, the man turns the basket upside down and simply shakes the whole crowd of ducklings into the water. Immediately all the ducks throw themselves after their piping young ones ”

“ Moreover, sub-varieties of each breed are coloured almost exactly like the wild duck, as I have seen with the largest and smallest breeds, namely Rouens and Call ducks, and, as Mr. Brent states (8/11. 'Poultry Chronicle' 1855 volume 3 page 512.) , is the case with Hook-billed ducks. This gentleman, as he informs me, crossed a white Aylesbury drake and a black Labrador duck, and some of the ducklings as they grew up assumed the plumage of the wild duck. ”

“ A long shot at a scared grey duck, as, taking the alarm, he makes off down the wind, is no bad test of eye and hand. In return, they are as excellent game-birds dead as living. This last is more than can be said for the handsomest game-bird of the country, the so-called paradise duck. Its plumage, so oddly contrasting in the dark male and reddish white-headed female, makes it the most easily recognised of wild-fowl. It also has developed a well-founded suspiciousness of man and his traps, and so manages to survive and occupy mountain lakes and valleys in considerable flocks. ”

“ Thinking only of her brood, she plucks the incomparably soft down from her breast and makes with it a sort of felt, which not only lines the whole hollow but forms such a thick border at its upper edge that it serves as a cover to protect the eggs from cold when the mother leaves the nest. Before the work of lining is quite completed, the duck begins laying her comparatively small, smooth-shelled, clouded-green or grayish-green eggs. ”

“ I am a strong advocate of steeping the wheat before feeding, as I think it renders it more digestible, though this is not so necessary if one uses "seconds." The ducks having got to eat wheat nicely, introduce a little barley, and by the time they are seven weeks old you can afford to do without meal entirely, and it will be time to take the birds down to the water which is to be their home. The greatest obstacle to success in rearing during the early stages of a young wild duck's life is the extraordinary knack they have of getting their heads and backs dirty. ”

“ The annals of wild life protection literature contain many records and illustrations of the remarkable quickness and thoroughness of sanctuary recognition by birds. On the other hand I feel greatly annoyed by the failure of waterfowl to reason equally well regarding the decoys of duck-shooters. They fail to learn, either by experience or hearsay, that small flocks of ducks sitting motionless near a shore are loaded, and liable to go off. ”

“ Near Malldraeth Yard, where the high road skirts a big tidal pool, the Sheld-Ducks, unlike the Herons which were feeding in the pool, paid but little attention to passers-by. Many domestic Ducks were feeding here, but the wild birds would allow no encroachment upon the spot where they happened to be feeding, driving the domestic birds away. The Sheld-Ducks often rose from the marsh in pairs, the duck, on the wing, being noticeably smaller than the drake. ”

“ No hybrids from different species were obtained, except from crosses between the mallard and the dusky duck. The food of all the ducks was what they ate in the wild state—grains, acorns, etc.; and shoots and roots of aquatic plants for the wood-ducks. All the species experimented with migrated southward, if not maimed, each autumn, and invariably returned with a male mate, which remained till the female began to hatch, when it went away, never to return. ”

“ There were two pintails, one of which was the most abundant species in the country; also a widgeon, a lake duck, a shoveller duck, with red plumage, grey head and neck, and blue wings; and two species of the long-legged whistling or tree duck. Another common species was the rosy-billed duck, now to be seen on ornamental waters in England; and occasionally we saw the wild Muscovy duck, called Royal duck by the natives, but it was a rare visitor so far south. ”

“ An experienced eye can generally tell, by the unusually elevated appearance of the duck on her nest, when she has hatched, and sometimes by creeping quietly forward the little birds may be heard chirping, though they instantly cease on receiving a warning from their mother. ”

“ The duck sits about twenty-six days before the eggs are hatched. The Norseman, who goes to work intelligently, lets her do as she pleases this time, and not only refrains from disturbing her, but assists her as far as possible by keeping away from the island all enemies who might harass the bird. He knows his ducks, if not personally, at least to this extent, that he can tell about what time this or that one will have finished brooding, and will set out with her ducklings to seek the safety of the sea. The journey thither brings sudden destruction to many unwatched young eider-ducks. ”

“ When your shoot is over, and the season is drawing to its close, the only work left amongst the ducks is to select the breeding stock for next season.
The best to keep are long and well-furnished birds, as they always fly better, and lay more eggs than the short thick-set variety: [Pg 80] they should have rakish-looking heads, with long bills, chrome yellow tinged with green in the case of the drake, and dull brown fringed with bright orange in the case of the duck. ”

“ Beyond the dogs lay a noble enclosure so large that it would have been subdivided into building lots had it been anywhere else. It was inhabited by all sorts of fowl, hundreds of them, of all varieties. There were chickens, turkeys, geese, and a flock of ducks. The Captain pointed out the Rouen ducks, almost exactly like the wild mallards.
"Those are my live decoys," said he.
For the accommodation of this multitude were cities of nest houses, roost houses, and the like. Huge structures [Pg 244] elevated on poles swarmed with doves. A duck pond even had been provided for its proper denizens. ”

“ No other species of duck is so thoroughly a child of the sea as the eider-duck; no species waddles more clumsily on land, or flies less gracefully, but none swims more rapidly or dives more deftly and deeply. ”

“ They fly, it is true, in some sort of order, but those that come to the mere here travel rather in a row, or line, slanting forwards, something like what military men call in echelon. The teal seem much bolder than the wild duck: they are often shot as they rise out of the brooks ”