Wood and I caught Mr. and Ms. Mallard hanging out in a fountain near the U.S. Navy Memorial. I love how they make the city their own. After all, it was 80 degrees out. Time for a swim.I don't know what Ms. Mallard is chatting about in this pic, but the Mr. doesn't seem particularly engaged. Perhaps he is thinking about sex or food. I guess gendered relationships are universal across the species. My girl cat Lucky is quite a chatty catty, too. Romeo on the other hand is very cuddly, but not very talkative, but sometimes I think that's because he's the big, sweet, slow boy in the class. (And he's quick to pounce on Lucky but as he is neutered, I'm not sure if he understands why he pounces.)
Wood can attest to my regularly talking his ear off, and he's a good sport about it, God bless him.
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Here is a little information that I found on Wikipedia about mating behaviors of mallard ducks. A little shocking and interesting, in my opinion!
Mallards form pairs only until the female lays eggs, at which time she is left by the male. Mallards also have rates of male-male sexual activity that are unusually high for birds. In some cases, as many as 19% of pairs in a Mallard population are male-male homosexual[7].
When they pair off with mating partners, often one or several drakes will end up "left out". This group will sometimes target an isolated female duck — chasing, pestering and pecking at her until she weakens (a phenomenon referred to by researchers as rape flight), at which point each male will take turns copulating with the female. Male Mallards will also occasionally chase other males in the same way. (In one documented case, a male Mallard copulated with another male he was chasing after it had been killed when it flew into a glass window.)[8]
Yaowza! Guess Mallard behavior is just as strange as human behavior after all...
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