Nuke Plant Nature Area -- November 6th, 2011

This was from almost a couple weeks ago. It was a bright sunny day, a good day just to be out & about, but I didn't expect to see much. There were a few dozen Mallards on the pond but nothing unusual.

Then I noticed a female Mallard swimming in circles around a male with her head touching the water. It looked weird. The male didn't seem particularly interested in her display.

I remembered reading about courtship displays of Mallards but I thought this was the wrong time of year for courtship. Apparently not. A bit of research explained that Mallards do their courtship and mating in October-November typically, but the young aren't born until the next spring.

And the head-down swimming the female was doing is known as nod-swimming.  Males do it too. The nod-swimming was followed by some head-bobbing of both male & female and then they mated.

He did say something to her here.

Here's a link to a short video that shows the nod-swimming, head-bobbing & mating. It's from the BBC.

http://www.arkive.org/mallard/anas-platyrhynchos/video-09b.html

There were 10 or so Bufflehead Ducks on the pond too. They were just enjoying the day though.

Nice light on a barn on the way home.

- fini - 

A link to my previous posts (non-2nd Marsh):
  http://rgbell.ca/3

A link to my previous posts of 2nd Marsh:
  http://rgbell.ca/2