Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS

THE SWANS, GEESE, DUCKS, AND MERGANSERS

Drakes

drakes, who welcomed their brown wives with loud and clamorous cooing. The house itself was a marvel. The earthen walls that surrounded it and the window embrasures were occupied by Ducks. On the ground the house was fringed with Ducks. On the turf slopes of its roof we could see Ducks, and a Duck sat on the door-scraper. The grassy banks had been cut into square patches, about eighteen inches having been removed, and each hollow had been filled with Ducks.

A windmill was infested, and so were all the outhouses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. The Ducks were everywhere. Many were so tame that we could stroke them on their nests; and the good lady told us that there was scarcely a Duck on the island that would not allow her to take its eggs without flight or fear. Most of the eggs are taken and pickled for winter consumption, one or two only being left in each nest to hatch.”The nests in many places are described as being made of seaweed and lined with the down, plucked by the female from her breast, until it makes a heap four or five inches deep around and among the eggs.

The product of down from each nest is about one sixth of a pound, and curiously enough is said to be of a better quality than when taken from the dead bird by hand. In some localities the nests are despoiled of the down and the bird forced to make use of grasses and stems as a lining. The eggs are four or six in number and usually of a pale olive-buff or olive-green.

After incubation is well under way the males generally live apart from the females, and often at a distance from shore. The food of these Ducks consists largely of mollusks and crustaceans, which they secure by diving and which they are enabled to crush with their powerful bills.

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