A Wood Duck pair, male on the left with dark brown head, female with more extensive underside patterning. Photo: Ian Fraser.
One of Canberra’s common natural night sounds is one we often hear, though perhaps without putting a name to it. On a quiet night, especially if you live near a grassy oval or park, you may hear a chorus of strong nasal honking “ngaow” passing overhead.
This is a flock of Wood Ducks on the way to graze on the grass for the night. I’m sure you’ve seen them by day, as they are the most common and familiar of Canberra’s duck species.
They are a neat upright grey duck with speckled undersides, most often seen loafing during the day in flocks near urban ponds and wetlands, farm dams, lakes and our major rivers, the Murrumbidgee and Molonglo. They’ll take to the water if we approach too closely but otherwise are comfortable ashore.
The males are very distinctive with coffee-brown heads and a little crest (they’re sometimes also called Maned Ducks), while females are paler and their undersides are more heavily splashed with white blotches. Wood Duck beaks are rather “unducky”; narrow and hooked at the end, reflecting their grass-eating lifestyle.
These feeding flocks are very tightly bound together for part of the year and are loyal to their daytime camps. They’ll return nightly to their favourite grass-restaurant until they’ve eaten it down, then they’ll find somewhere else to feed for a while.
However, by now the autumn flocks have broken up as the pairs, which form long-term bonds, scatter to start the breeding process.
They rely on nesting hollows in standing trees (living or dead) and such hollows are a scarce resource as old trees are regularly removed to make way for suburbia – we don’t try very hard to incorporate original trees into our suburbs, even though we know how important they are for wildlife.
To make the hollow-housing situation even worse, many hollows are taken over by introduced and very aggressive mynas and starlings and colonies of feral honeybees.
Female Wood Duck perched on a branch, honking to assert her ownership of the nearby nesting hollow. Photo: Ian Fraser.
Though their feet aren’t really made for perching, pairs of Wood Ducks are right now staking their claims to hollows by standing on a branch near a desirable nesting hole and shouting their whiny honks at others who may be looking too closely at their chosen home.
The eggs are laid directly on the wood at the bottom of the hollow and covered with down to help keep them warm.
The mother broods alone as her mate has gone to seek out the nearest water for when the chicks hatch.
Because the demand for hollows is so high, the most desirable ones near water are soon taken, so some ducklings hatch not only high above the ground but far from water.
This is the most dangerous time of their entire lives, coming as soon as they hatch. Obviously there is no duckling food in the tree and the mother can’t bring food to them – although they’ll be vegetarian for most of their lives, growing chicks need protein so they need to be able to access insects and small water crustaceans almost immediately.
Fortunately they can walk from the moment they hatch, but first they have to get to the ground.
A pair of Wood Ducks with their ducklings. Broods of a dozen are not uncommon, though most won’t make it to adulthood. Photo: Ian Fraser.
It’s a dramatic scene with the parents urgently encouraging them to jump, both by calling from the ground and by flying repeatedly up to the nest. One after another the little balls of fluff float down to the ground, bounce slightly and are ready for the hazardous trek to the nearest water.
If they are threatened the mother will pretend to be injured, dragging a wing on the ground, while the babies hide in the grass.
Nor is the defence only passive – I’ve been angrily threatened by Wood Duck parents for daring to ride past them as they stood by the lake some 10 m away with their brood. Once the threat has passed she will come back and continue to lead them to the pond or dam where they’ll feed until they can fly.
However one threat that she can’t protect them from is traffic. If you see ducks on the road in spring or summer, please don’t assume that they’ll just fly out of your way – there could well be a train of flightless ducklings behind, as we’ve experienced.
Sometimes we can get so familiar with a common animal that we forget how interesting and attractive they are, which is always a pity.
Keep an eye on your local Wood Ducks as they get into the busiest time of their year.
