South African black duck nesting observations.
The South African black ducks have been nesting for nearly three weeks now. Although considered of Least concern in the wild, these birds are rare in captivity and although they do not command a high price they prove quite hard to get hold of once lost.
Every year we scrabble around in February trying to pair them up. We nearly always forget about how early they like to breed, and are often too late to maximise upon any pair bonds. This year however a bond like no other appeared between two birds, and despite sharing a pen amongst nearly 50+ others they stood out a mile from the rest of their pen-mates that they were ready to breed. We quickly snapped them up in late January and lo and behold; they quickly laid eggs! Personally I was amazed, as the female is a 2002 bird, and these ages are rarely heard of in dabbling species.
Despite being a traditionally ground nesting species she chose an old Orinoco nest box from 2012 within which to lay. This possibly saved the day throughout the bitterly cold nights we experienced in February. She plucked out a generous amount of down for them from her breast in between laying each egg, helping to keep them above freezing, and hovering in the nest during the night to deter frost. Observations indicated that she had begun to incubate on egg number 5, but I was thrilled to see upon candling a fortnight later that she was in fact incubating 7 eggs, and that all 7 of them were fertile!
During the whole 14 days she didn't come off once within my knowledge to feed, but now that the eggs are well developed and can maintain their own heat better she is beginning to get off almost daily for a spot of breakfast. Boy is she frantic! She runs around at a million miles an hour, in between my legs and taking no heed of my traditional threat. She stuffs as much wheat and pellet into her crop as possible, takes a slug of water, has a quick wash with her hubby, and then jumps back into the box! All in under 2 minutes!
In the meantime, during incubation her particularly bored husband spends his time pacing up and down adjacent to the outside of the aviary, mouthing off at wild Mallards that come to taunt him. I tend to think that he enjoys the responsibility and opportunity to defend her, but he hasn't got long to wait. We will know within 12 days whether he is destined to be a dad. A fertile egg means nothing until it hatches...Cross fingers!
