The Mystery of Duck Eggs

The egg has long been a symbol of Spring, of new life and resurrection. In this century the old pagan traditions of coloring, hunting, and rolling eggs during Spring festivals are now popular customs at Easter.

The Easter egg has been associated with the rabbit because that animal was also a symbol of fertility, but baby chicks and ducklings are the new life hatching from the egg. Many wild ducks are returning to lay eggs and start new life. Each duck species has a special place and way to do it.

The six most common early arriving ducks are the mallard, black duck, green-winged teal, wood duck, ring-necked duck, and hooded merganser. The first four are "dabbling" or "puddle" ducks, and the last two are shallow "divers." All of them are found in relatively shallow water along pond edges, in marshes, or even in small puddles.

The mallard and black duck often feed by dabbling, tipping up their rear ends and reaching straight down with their bills to nibble on the delicate new plants that grow on the pond bottom. The teal and the wood duck do this occasionally, but more often browse on the surface of the water, sweeping their bills back and forth to glean floating vegetation and insects. All of these also graze on the seeds and vegetable matter found on banks and fields away from water.

The ring-necked duck and merganser dive for food beneath slightly deeper water. Diving ducks have shorter wings and their legs are placed farther back on the body, all to facilitate swimming under water. However, they cannot spring up from the water into the air the way the dabblers do with their longer wings. They have to paddle along the surface and get up speed before they are airborne.

The egg is a great source of food to other creatures, so the parent birds must protect the eggs from such depredations as well as against the cold. It is difficult to hide the nest when there is no foliage, but they have managed to find other methods of concealment.

The first three duck species lay their eggs in a nest that is built on the ground. The teal has to move farther north where larger, wilder wetlands still provide the extensive marsh grass and cattails it needs for its nest site. The mallard and black duck breed in our area near brooks and small ponds or marshes. They neatly conceal the nest in heavy dead vegetation left over from the previous summer.

I was amazed and totally delighted once to find a mallard nest, filled with over a dozen eggs. Inside those perfect white jewels new life was hidden among the dead grasses. Then I learned that predators follow human scent to such a succulent meal, and I decided not to look for one again, being happy with the memory of that single discovery. Today I noticed three drake mallards together with no females, so the hens must already by settled on their secret hoard.

Of the last three ducks, only the wood duck is a resident here, the others migrating eventually to places farther north. As its name implies, the wood duck is at home in trees, laying its eggs in a large cavity. It is startling to see this flat-footed swimmer standing at ease high on a tree branch. A friend of mine who lives in a crowded suburb reported that a pair of wood ducks was perched on the roof of a neighbor's house just a week ago.

It is common now to see wood duck boxes installed in ponds, and sometimes the wood duck actually uses them. It prefers to find a site in the woods away from water. The young ducklings readily and safely plop down from the nest hole and scurry overland behind the mother hen to water.

The boxes over water seem to be especially prone to a strange behavior called "dumping." A female wood duck will deposit eggs in another female's nest and up to fifty eggs have been found in a single cavity. It is enough eggs for an Easter ritual, but too many to hatch. When too much life threatens the delicate balance, then even the marvelous design of the egg is made infertile.