3. Speaking of jealous lovers…

Image: Kyosuke Takayama, Flickr (license)

We’ve commented on ducks getting frisky at Disney parks before—particularly, on the Jungle Cruise. What can we say? Disney World is one of the top honeymoon destinations in the world.

What we didn’t mention, however, is that when ducks get amorous, they look like they’re trying to murder each other.

It’s a hard concept to picture, particularly after a family of mallards have demurely waddled by your feet at Kringla begging for crumbs. I mean, two of Disney’s most famous characters, Donald and Daisy, are ducks. By their very nature, they’re utterly precious.

In the wild, however, ducks have some interesting issues when mating season rolls around. The icky details of duck reproductive anatomy are not something I recommend you Google. I’m serious. What you will see cannot be unseen. Here’s the PG-version, though I would advise that readers with gentle souls, sensitivities to violence, or just anyone who really loves ducks skip this part.

Ducks are one of the few bird species that practice forced copulation. They don’t do charming dances like swans or build little nests strewn with trinkets like bower birds. When a female is ready for mating, she identifies a male she wants to have offspring with. However, once she gives him visual cues, it’s not uncommon for every male duck in the vicinity to barrel in to claim her as their own. The entire process is disturbingly violent. I witnessed this phenomenon the first time at Animal Kingdom, near the Drinkwallah restaurant.

Image: Neil Mullins, Flickr (license)

We were slurping some chai when a female duck charged out of the bushes with two other ducks right on her tail. One was clearly a male, but the other looked female (I would learn later that this was a different species of male duck). With a loud ruckus and much wing-flapping, the males chased her through the crowd, into the bushes, and finally caught her with their beaks and jumped on top of her. We stared in shock, unsure what to do as they bloodied her neck, yanking out her head features and pecking at her repeatedly. We thought for certain they would kill her. We grabbed a nearby cast member who was answering questions about lemurs. By the time we got back, the action was over. Fortunately, the female duck was all right, if not a little bald and bloodied.

The cast member explained that this is normal behavior and that the disturbing scene is a common one certain times of year in the parks. By the end of mating season, it’s not unusual for most of the female ducks to be missing feathers on their head and necks. While the males’ attentions can prove a violent spectacle, the female duck ultimately gets the last laugh as she can choose (with stunning specificity) which male will father her ducklings.

The moral of the story? Next time you see a mother duck with a family of fuzzy babies diligently following her through the Magic Kingdom castle moat, perhaps give her a salute. She’s no Daisy Duck. She’s freaking Sarah Connor.