Habits of Ducks
Each species of duck has its own eating habits. Ducks will eat grass roots, water plants, wild rice, seeds of all types, small nuts, berries, grains, small fish, shellfish, worms, leeches, crayfish, toads, frogs, salamanders, and tadpoles. Some ducks feed by diving for fish. Others feed in corn and other grain fields, in marshes, and along the banks of rivers and lakes.
Pochards have blue bills and dive beneath the water to feed.The wild duck usually chooses and remains with one mate for a season. The domestic duck changes mates between broods.
A typical wild duck's nest is saucer-shaped. It is built of reeds, grasses, mosses, or leaves, and is lined with down from the female's breast. Most duck nests are built on the ground—usually in some depression among reeds, rushes, rocks, willows, or in the hollow of a dead tree. Ducks of some species nest high up in trees, typically in cavities. Some ducks occupy the abandoned tree nests of such larger birds as hawks.
Female ducks of most species lay 6 to 12 eggs; females of some species lay as many as 20. Typically, the eggs are incubated only by the female. When she leaves the nest, she covers the eggs with a layer of feathers. Incubation lasts for about a month. After hatching, the young follow the mother to a body of water. The young of most species first fly when they are between 50 and 60 days old.
All of a duck's flight feathers are shed at the same time. Males shed the feathers soon after breeding; females, after nesting. Males lose their bright plumage during this molting. The ducks are unable to fly for a few weeks, until new feathers grow. Males regain their bright plumage with the new feathers.
Ducks have short but unusually strong wings, enabling them to fly long distances. Some ducks migrate from Canada to Central America. Unlike geese, ducks do not fly in formation. Each flock may include about 100 ducks. Each year, the ducks follow the same fly ways, or routes, and the ducks stop at the same feeding sites along the flyways.
The shelduck migrates to the same place every year.
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