Entry Three: Waterfowl Hierarchy

Despite living just near Almansor park, I don’t visit it very often. I only just recently started to go back there to collect observations for my specialty. There hasn’t been much change to it physically, but I definitely don’t remember there to be so many Canada Goose and American Coot roaming around the park. My main questions was, where were the Mallard ducks?

To my surprise, I found them tucked away under a tree. There was a small group of Mallards and one Mandarin Duck huddled together, and it seemed like they would fend off American Coots if one got too close. This happened in two incidents, once when I visited in late afternoon and the other when I visited in the late morning/ early afternoon. The only time I saw Mallards swimming in the pond was in the evening around 6 p.m. I found this very odd because in the Mallards in Lower Arroyo, Steelhead and Marsh park would be seen swimming around even with American Coots present.

I don’t think it’s because Mallards are submissive, paired males are often very aggressive and protect their territory by chasing away other males (All About Birds). However, since they live in such a small environment and they don’t have the numbers in their flock, the Mallards don’t occupy the pond as much. As a result, Canada Goose, American Wigeon and American Coots are seen openly roaming the area.

When I went to Almansor around 6 p.m, I noticed there were fewer Canada Goose than in the morning and that may be why the Mallards were hiding away. In short, while the American Coots out number the Canada Goose, the Canada Goose are much bigger and more aggressive than the Coots they are higher in the hierarchy. Next are the American Coots simply because of their sheer numbers and finally the American Wigeon which can be seen being chased away by the Coots at times. The Mallards only come out when there are few Canada Goose around.

“Mallard.” , Life History, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology, www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Mallard/lifehistory.

Publicado el 11 de diciembre de 2017 a las 12:21 AM por yisihe