Bullying in the bird world
PICTURE OF THE MOMENT
After dining with Shamu at SeaWorld the other day, I found some mallard ducks that appeared to be playing around. Upon closer inspection, two males were bullying a female:
The mallard on the left — we’ll call him ML — was doing all the damage, even pulling out a huge mouthful of feathers from that poor female. The mallard on the right — we’ll call him MR — was merely standing guard. Eventually we saw why he was standing guard because that female’s mate showed up and took to ML and MR, running them off and snuggling up to his little gal.
There were young children watching this bullying. What are they going to think about bullying?
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Posted on May 31, 2012, in Birds, Fauna, Mother & Father Nature, Photos, Picture of the Moment and tagged ducks, killer whales, mallards, orcas, shamu, whales. Bookmark the permalink. 14 Comments.
Those aren’t feathers, Russel, they are leaves.
And hey, your categories list is the best indexing widget I’ve ever seen. (That’s less of a compliment than it seems; I’ve seen lots but have yet to make one!)
LOL – The feathersall blew away after ML spit them out!
I try not to get carried away with categories. I might add one or two more over the years but I think I’m pretty well set.
Right, I did run a Tall Ships search within your site, but it was just before you posted today. Boy was I surprised.
Ducks are good at this
Those mallards aren’t setting a very good example, are they?
Don’t think Cool Cat really likes bullying!
I don’t know. If she could get to those birds, I’m pretty sure she would bully them, or worse. lol
I see this bullying thing quite a bit with our birds – I hate it but, having tried to interfere, I now know to let it happen….
ugh… i see this horrible behavior in our muscovy ducks, down here in s. fla — except they’re not really bullying, but mating. the males will be so aggressive with the females, that they’ll actually drown them in the process, or otherwise kill them on land. what happened to darwinism, there?
Mating is what I thought, but if so these ducks are into S&M. lol
hahahah! so true.
You dined with Shamu? You throw that out like it is no big deal.
SeaWorld makes it so that it IS no big deal. Just $39 per person (adults). I’ll do it again, that’s for sure.
AWESOME post. AWESOME!
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