Christmas freckles!
Despite all evidence to the contrary, our Freckled duck groups have decided that it is now Spring.
As with many of our southern hemisphere gems, these Australian beauties have decided to breed the whole year through! We have had a Freckled duck nest for every month since February, and these veritable egg powerhouses are still not finished!
A day typically begins with a scene like the one above. As an image, this scene looks relatively peaceful but the reality is that it shows a near constant battle for male supremacy. These two males are in direct competition for copulation rights, and they are pretty evenly matched. Beyond lots of gutteral hissing and the classic Freck squawk, their classic display is a melodic "peep" and a 'forward and back' head movement, which typically renders them temporarily immobile breast-down on the floor! These two appear pretty close in terms of quality, but the boy on the left just about edges ahead of the other guy on size. The reality in fact is that the females choose, and she likes the biggun'. Unfortunately, their union is often hampered by male number 2. I'd never do without him though, because the competition between the males spurs the whole group into a far greater breeding frenzy than if they were able to breed leisurely. We experience greater fertility and for a longer season; plus if one male picks up a bug or goes into moult, then the other can take over mating rights for a while.
This lovely lad is the top dog in breeding aviary two. You have just got to look at his remarkable sheen, bright eye and red flush to see he is a cracking individual... There are a few indications of greater age about him too though, with a slightly thinning forhead and a paler greying beak. These ducks are pretty hardy though, and we would expect him to be breeding and boisterous in excess of 10 years of age. His age and experience keeps him ahead of the pack, and the female below thinks he is the bee's knees. Considering that we have experienced near 100% fertility from this group this year, I can't help but agree!
This is what we are seeing at the moment. Post-moult females getting straight back into the breeding game. It's so hard to regulate some of the southern hemisphere species' breeding patterns because their stimuli are so different. Most birds are stimulated to breed by increased daylight length and food availability coupled with rising ambient night-time temperatures. Most of the Australian species however (or any species which experiences a wet and dry season in their native habitat) often gets set off by rainfall. Silly to us maybe, but in African wetlands for example if you wait for the grass to grow and the insect larvae to hatch before you lay, it'll all be in someone else's belly by the time your babes come along. As a result many of these species are instead triggered to breed by the cause of all those wonderful plentiful foodstuffs; the rain that precedes it. Sadly in the UK rain does not equal plenty, and so rationing foodstuffs to represent winter rations, decreasing protein and cutting down vegetation just doesn't cut the mustard when it comes to deterring Freckled ducks. They simply rise to the challenge along with the rising water levels...
It's safe to say that we don't want to be hatching juveniles at this time of year. Whilst the mums and dads might be appreciating the milder weather, tiny fluffy ducklings will have nothing to eat and would have some very cool night time temperatures to deal with. Whilst this female is clearly gravid or heavy with eggs, we don't want her to start incubating. You should never stop a female laying by taking her nestboxes away (this is something we believe in whole-heartedly) and so instead we are treating her rather like a chicken you'd have at home. Because her eggs are being removed, this female will soon stop wasting energy on laying unnecessary eggs that magically disappear, and will start to built up winter fat reserves (because these Australians are the first to grumble when the weather gets frosty!)
Come March however i'll let them go for it with my blessing! (so long as March is mild...)
