"One of These Ducks is not Like the Others"

“One of these ducks is not like the other
One of these ducks just isn’t the same.
Can you guess which duck is not like the other
now before I end this game?” (Approximate lyrics, it’s been a long time!)

I find myself singing this old Sesame Street song as I look out over the bog pond that is getting increasingly more covered with Mallards. For what I have found of late, is that IF I scan the flock more carefully, I will be rewarded to find they are NOT all Mallards. Aha! In their midst is in imposter. Or just a lone duck looking for the safety of the flock which is poignantly more likely.

Yesterday the one aberration that caught my eye was a female Hooded Merganser. The sweep of the head feathers is the give away. Although being a female, she is brown and not the startlingly black and white of the male so she blended in pretty easily with the female Mallards. One can only guess what may have happened to her mate, her siblings, or whomever else she would normally be travelling with.

I wrote about Hooded Mergansers when they came this way in the spring.
Male Hoodeds are the ones that do that spectacular summersault in a shower of droplets with a big “tadaa!” in front of the female. Those that have seen it say the female doesn’t seem nearly as impressed with this as the one watching with binoculars from the shore. However, now is not the time for impressive water displays, but time instead for the serious business of getting out of Dodge before the snow flies. I wonder if this female is just ahead of the others, or was perhaps separated from her own flock in that wild three-day Nor’easter. A question that can only be speculated on and never really answered.

Hooded Mergansers do migrate along our coast, where they sport about on the local ponds rather than in the surf as the Red Breasted Merganser does and this pond has hosted them for several years now.
In the past, a few pairs have even lingered here for weeks, lucky me. Lucky me indeed, for as I give a cursory glance to the many small ponds I drive by in a day, I realize they are not all as decked out in ducks as this bog’s pond is. Perhaps it’s wonderful seclusion; no roads going by it, only one house set back from it, is what makes it so desirable or maybe the dining here is better than in other ponds. Whatever the reason, the fall is as promising a time as the spring for new arrivals each day.

But back to the, “One of these ducks is not like the others” theme, about a week ago, it was a Ring Necked duck that was in the midst of all these Mallards.
Again, just one, and a female and although it was in the right place at the right time, it was on its own. I frequently see a pair of Black Ducks hanging out with the Mallards. At a quick glance they look very similar to female Mallards, but they have a dark Mohawk-like streak on their head, a purple wing patch rather than the blue and the patch is not as strikingly bordered in white as the Mallard’s is.
These species frequently are seen together, but where I live, the Mallards generally outnumber them by a considerable amount. It is amazing how many Mallards are gathering at the pond. The numbers seem to increase daily and I wonder what the carrying capacity of this pond is and where they will all head when eventually the pond freezes. The salt water marshes perhaps.

So, if you happen to have a body of water near you and you are on a favored migration route, than keep a keen eye, “for birds of a feather DO flock together,” but on careful inspection, not all “feathers” are the same. See if you can spot some interlopers, or lonely hearts, or those misplaced momentarily from their own kind. And pat yourself on the back when you are observant enough to notice the difference. Feel free to hum the Sesame Street song while doing so!