Courtyard Ducks

     For more than 35 years, at least in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, mallard duck females have been hatching ducklings in the walled in courtyards of schools, churches, retirement communities and other buildings.  And that has continued into 2015.  Because of a lack of water and ample food in most of those walled-in courtyards, nervous and upset hen mallards and their cute, little ducklings must be escorted or chased by concerned people from those courtyards, through the hallways of the buildings and into the world of waterways and impoundments outside those walls.  Every year that procedure makes the newspapers as a nature and human interest story.  And it is nice that those people were concerned enough to take the time to release the ducks into a more natural habitat. 
     But, also, I've often wondered why mallard hens have done this year after year, for so many years.  Probably at least one mallard hen, several years ago, laid her clutch of about a dozen eggs in a courtyard where they were safe from ground predators, such as skunks and raccoons, and, probably, aerial predators, too.  That first attempt to hatch ducklings in a courtyard was successful and mallard females from that hatching, when they grew up, were imprinted on that niche for hatching young, and so were their youngsters and their ducklings.  And so after all these years, many mallard hens of several generations that are descended from that first mother mallard, are hatching babies in courtyards throughout Lancaster County and, perhaps, elsewhere because that is what their ancestors did before them.
     Now suppose all mallards that nest outside of courtyards were to become extinct, which is not likely, only mallards that hatched young in courtyards would be left alive to carry on that new tradition.  A successful change in the breeding habit of that kind of duck happened that kept it from becoming completely extinct.  The species would be altered.  And this is one of the ways in which new species are formed.  Another is through geographic isolation where any quirk in the genetic code would be magnified in a species because of a lack of outside genes coming into that gene pool to dilute that quirk.         
     Of course, this is speculation.  But mallards have found another niche, however accidentally, in which to hatch ducklings in greater safety than in natural habitats.  Being adaptable is a key to success.  And it pays not to have "all your eggs in one basket".  At any rate, the story of the nesting courtyard mallards is interesting, and demonstrates the adjustments that some kinds of life make to increase their chances of survival as species.