The Mystery of the Mallard

Mallards are a familiar and welcome sight in much of the country, but how much do we actually know about this species? Despite their widespread status, there has been little research on the status of the British mallard population in recent decades. One of the most important elements of the health of any population is productivity – essentially, how many young per adult are added to the population each year. For ducks, one aspect of productivity we know little about in this country is the proportion of ducklings that make it through the first eight weeks of life. 

The First Eight Weeks

The first few weeks of a mallard’s life can be treacherous. Ducklings are very small in the first week or two after hatching, which makes them vulnerable to many different predators, as well as harsh conditions. Once they reach around seven to eight weeks of age, they are fully grown, have a full set of feathers and begin to learn to fly, at which point they become far less vulnerable. What goes on in these first two months, and how many ducklings survive, is a crucial stage in the mallard life cycle that scientists need more information on to better understand what drives changes in the wider population. This is where you can help!

DucklingWatch is a Britain-wide project in which anyone can record their mallard brood sightings. 

All you need to record for each brood is:

1. Location
2. Date
3. Number of ducklings
4. Approximate age

You can submit your sightings at https://citsci.org/projects/ducklingwatch.

Follow the Family

Reporting the same brood more than once (over multiple days) is particularly useful as this helps scientists build a picture of how many ducklings survive per brood. You can do this by naming your brood when you submit your sighting and using the same brood name if you spot the same brood again. Once broods reach water after hatching, they tend not to stray far from their mother’s chosen foraging site while they are still young and growing, so if you keep seeing a brood in the same place it is likely to be the same family. 

Not sure how old the ducklings you’ve seen are? Find a simple guide to duckling age on our webpage or download here: https://essexuniversity.box.com/v/ducklingageguide

Many mallards in city parks look a little different from typical mallards, for example with very pale or dark plumage, white “bibs” or other unusual plumage features. These are domestic hybrids, i.e. descendants of both wild mallards and escaped domestic ducks. Their ducklings are often a mix of typical looking ducklings and either yellow ducklings or dark brown ducklings with pale bibs. These broods can also be recorded in DucklingWatch, and there is an option to include this in the record – telling us that the brood you have recorded is a domestic hybrid will help us understand if these ducklings have a different survival rate to wild mallard ducklings. 

If you have any questions about the project or prefer not to use our website to submit sightings, please contact ducks@essex.ac.uk