Mallards and Canadas

     Though familiar, everyday birds around human-made impoundments, lawns and fields in suburban areas and farmland in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, mallard ducks and Canada geese are as handsome species of waterfowl as any other kinds of ducks and geese.  I have seen groups, pairs and families of both species most everywhere in every one of those habitats.  Newly-hatched ducklings and goslings in early May are cute, but grow quickly and are nearly full-sized by August.  And the main reason for the abundance of mallards and Canadas in human-made environments is their being adaptable enough to regularly use built habitats to live, feed and raise young in.
     Drake and hen mallards are both attractive in different ways.  Drakes have gray body feathering, maroon chests and iridescent-green heads.  Females are brown with darker markings that camouflage them, which is important when setting on eggs and raising equally-camouflaged ducklings.
     Female mallards hatch young in tall grass and other sheltered places, usually near ponds and creeks in cropland.  They raise the ducklings alone, getting no help from their green-headed mates, who form bachelor groups by late April.
     But some hens raise youngsters in suburban areas.  Each female mallard lays about 12 eggs under sheltering shrubbery on the edges of lawns, even a bit of a distance from water.  But she leads her brood to a nearby pond or small waterway where the young grow up quickly by eating invertebrates mostly, to ingest protein.  Over the years, a couple of female mallards hatched ducklings under bushes in our yard and led their progeny to a nearby, suburban pond to feed and grow.
     But of most interest is many hen mallards in the last several years, including the present one, hatch ducklings in the closed-in courtyards of some schools, churches and businesses.  Each hen flies over the building and into the courtyard to lay her clutch, one egg per day.  Those eggs and resulting ducklings are safe in the courtyard from the maraudings of skunks, raccoons and other predators, but the baby ducks usually don't have any water, or enough space to get enough food to survive to maturity.  And unable to fly out, they are trapped in those courtyards.
     However, kindly people herd the female mallard and her brood through a courtyard door into the building, down a hallway to a door to the outside world.  Out the mother and babies go, into the outside world where there is ample food and water, but also predators that could take some of the ducklings.
     Adult mallards collect in flocks through each winter, resting on ponds, or slow-flowing creeks when pond water freezes, and feeding on corn kernels in harvested corn fields.  They even use their scoop-like beaks to push under a shallow snow cover to shovel up corn.
     Mallards are their most interesting in winter at dusk on sunny days, when snow is on the ground.  Bunches of them sweep swiftly off ponds and waterways, with a whistling of wings, and power quickly across the sky, silhouetted black before brilliant sunsets.  They circle a harvested cornfield they intend to land on and watch for potential danger around it.  If their are no threats, they descend as a group, or groups, to the field, sometimes disappearing and reappearing in blowing snow tinged pink by the setting sun.  The ducks, wind, snow and sun together create a wild, beautiful sight on those snow-covered, frigid fields.
     During the 1950's, the only Canada geese I saw were those winging high in the sky in V shapes in October.  They were geese migrating south from nesting grounds in eastern Canada to winter in the Chesapeake Bay Area.  But Canada geese were stocked in southeastern Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, in the 1960's.  Now there are nesting Canada geese in much of the Lower 48.
     Famous for their V shapes in flight, loud, inspiring honking and living around human-made impoundments and short-grass lawns, stately Canada geese are majestic in public parks and other human-made habitats where they are easily seen by people. 
     Like mallards, Canada geese are adaptable, permanent residents in southeastern Pennsylvania.      
In winter, they roost in large flocks on impoundments, and feed on corn kernels in harvested cornfields, and green blades of winter rye and lawn grass.
     Pairs of Canadas hatch about five goslings each by late April around farm or park ponds, and the whole family grazes on lawn grass.  Both similar-appearing members of each pair escort and protect their goslings from predators and the elements. 
     Some pairs of Canadas nest above ground, which is a departure from the normal for them.  I've seen nests of Canada geese in abandoned hawk or heron nests and on the old bridge supports of train tracks over the Susquehanna River.  This keeps eggs and goslings away from ground predators, but the goslings must jump to the ground to get food and water. 
     The pretty mallards and magnificent Canadas are abundant and ever-present in southeastern Pennsylvania because they adapted to human-made habitats.  They lend a bit of the wild to public parks, farmland and suburban areas the year around.