Saturday, April 25, 2009
I'm a Duck Expert
Even after the mess the duck prank left in our kitchen, I still love ducks. There are two little baby fluff balls at the duck pond that my friends and I got to hold last Sunday. Then today, we were quite excited when we looked outside and found these two.
After listening to my roomates argue over whether the one with green head was the boy or the girl, I finally just looked it up (the boys are the ones with the green heads) When I looked it up, I found out a lot about my duck friends.
Did you know?
The ducks are generally monogamous, although these bonds generally last a single year only. However, mallards form pairs only until the female lays eggs, at which time she is left by the male.
Mallards also have rates of male-male sexual activity that are unusually high for birds. In some cases, as many as 19% of pairs in a Mallard population are male-male homosexual.
The ducklings are precocial, and can swim and feed themselves on insects as soon as they hatch, although they stay near the female for protection.
Despite widespread misconceptions, only the females of most dabbling ducks "quack." Male mallards have a nasal call and the females have the stereotypical "quack."
The urban legend that ducks quacks don't echo has been debunked by Mythbusters AND the Acoustics Research Centre at the University of Salford.
Wow, I could go on and on! My roommate is making fun of me, but it's just so fascinating. I never knew there was so much to learn about ducks. Man, if only I was this fascinated to retain the information in my college classes! I've got a brain full of pretty useless knowledge!
Anyway, they came. We fed them bread.
And then they went on their way.
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