On Saturday, a hawk killed a female duck out behind our house. My wife opened the back door and the hawk flew off, leaving the carcass.
Soon after, a male duck came by. At first we thought he began eating the body, but it was quickly evident that was not the case. He was pecking at her, nudging with his beak, and at times lifting her neck or wing with his mouth and then dropping it. My wife said, “I think he’s trying to wake her up.”
We noticed yesterday that he had either come back or had not left, and we kept checking throughout the day. He stayed with the body all day long. At times he exhibited more of the above actions, but mostly he simply sat or stood nearby.
At one point another male came by. He seemed indifferent to the dead female, but appeared to be trying to get the first male away from her. I try to do my best to avoid anthropomorphizing animal behavior, but it was almost as if he were saying, *dude, she’s gone, you gotta come back to the flock now. * They fought pretty vigorously at times. The second male would force the first away from the body, but he always fought his way back to her. He would not be dissuaded from his vigil.
The duck was still there when we went to bed last night, and he was there when I left for work this morning. It’s been almost two days.
So just what’s going on here? Is he waiting for her to wake up? Guarding her body? Mourning his lost mate? Is this normal behavior, and if so, how long will he keep at it?
Consider that a pair of mated animals (even if the mating pair associates only for the mating season) is programmed to stay together. Such a pair bond creates behaviour that keeps the animals proximate, but does not account for the inability to comprehend death, finality or the future.
At our level of comprehension, the mate is dead. At the duck’s level the mate is inactive. How much more overlay there is than that would certainly be anthropomorphizing until we learn how to speak quack better.
Big caveats apply, but once a band of blue jays ate some wren chicks that were nested in a trash can near my house. The female wren afterwards perched near the former nest and just sat there singing a very odd song (for wrens) for most of the day.
The duck was trying to get laid. The dead duck was probably not in a good position for copulation (or you didn’t realize what the live duck was doing to it).
The behaviour of the first male as described by the OP is far more passive than that attributed to the male in your link.
The latter was observed to copulate almost continuously for about 75 minutes. The OP’s male exhibits aggression only to the second male, and sits or stands near the dead female for most of the time, only occasionally nudging her beak or lifting and dropping her neck and wing.
I’m with Chief Pedant. The OP’s duck recognises an inactive mate. To us, it might appear to be grieving. But we don’t know the strength of that opinion.
Of course, I wasn’t monitoring the duck for the entire time, but I did not see anything that even remotely resembled attempted copulation. Unless, as Staale implied, he was trying to turn her over to get a better angle or something. But it didn’t appear to be his primary goal.
I am a “DUCK HUNTER” and I have never seen any kind of empathy with any duck. We do see it with Canadian Geese, but of course this is spring mating time and we only hunt fall migrations.
There are many stories about Mallard’s drowning their mate’s during copulation.
I wasn’t aware Mallards formed pair-bonds: I thought the males stuck with the female until she laid eggs, then left, possibly to find another chick. No attachment required or even useful at all. The eggs don’t need an active father figure, so the father is better off trying to sire more children with others. Attachment to the mother would deny his ability to get more children, without any boost to his current children’s survival.
He may have been hounding the female until she was exhausted so that he could rape her, and is now perplexed…
According to this report, it is not unheard of for Mallards to form pair-bonds over more than one breeding season. Even if this is not the case, it does not preclude him from having a strong short-term attraction towards her. It’s also possible that he has had trouble finding female mates in the past, so he has decided that his best option is waiting for her to wake up. This would seem likely if he is less attractive than average, based on his size and the quality of his plumage.
There was no evidence of this occurring. If he wanted to rape her, he’s had plenty of time to do it.
I’ve heard of “just lost my mate” (hanging around and possibly nuzzling the newly dead) behaviour in geese also, but haven’t seen it. I was with a kid once who shot a goose out of a flock walking around in front of his house. The dead one flopped over and the rest didn’t even flinch. Just kept walking around. “Say, Bennie musta fainted or something.” I mean they did not even take a second glance. Different for pairs, of course, but my point is that the notion that some sort of a tragedy has just occurred is outside their bird brains in my opinion.
I’ve had a similar experience with turkey hunting. I shot a turkey once and the other Tom with it took off for only a few seconds, returning shortly thereafter to do what I can only describe as a short dance of triumph at his rival’s collapse. Hysterically funny, and woulda been even funnier except I only had one license. Again, not a pair-bond story but I’m just pointing out that “dead” for you and me is not “dead” for birds.
Given the limited nature of the pair bond in Mallards, I think it was very unlikely the male was mourning a dead mate. Much more likely he was interested in copulating with the female, even if he didn’t make any overt attempts.
Male Mallards are known for engaging in rape behavior, and as mentioned above there is a documented case of homosexual necrophilia. The first report of such avian Davian behavior involved a female that was killed by a goose and then gang-raped (if such a term can be applied to a corpse) by several male Mallards.
If I weren’t already a vegetarian, a story like that would put me off eating duck for good.