Wood Duck Mom

Here's a mother Wood Duck with 13 ducklings that I met last month. 

It sounds like these could be all her own ducklings, though Wood Duck females will do egg dumping, where some females lay some of her eggs in the nests of other females. This is a form of brood parasitism called intraspecific brood parasitism, and is somewhat common among ducks. Initially this might seem as "immoral" and "lazy" as the brood parasitism performed by birds like the Brown-headed Cowbird, but:

  1. This probably doesn't hurt the victim duck's brood much. Ducklings feed themselves, so the true or adopting mom just needs to herd them all to a food source and away from dangers.
  2. The adopted ducklings presumably don't mistreat the other ducklings.
  3. It doesn't hurt the species at all, since the ducklings are all of the same species.

I don't know if Wood Ducks also pick up ducklings from other moms after they hatch like this Common Merganser mom, though it wouldn't surprise me if this happens where there are lots of Wood Ducks.

May 10, 2021 at the Raritan River Greenway
Photo 128960140, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

May 10, 2021 at the Raritan River Greenway
Photo 128960154, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)


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