Keeping a watchful and documented eye on a newly born Muscovy clutch

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

I will be documenting a newly born clutch in my area. So I invite everyone to follow along here daily.

History: I successfully rehabbed two ducklings earlier in the year with Spraddle leg afterwards @ruthhope helped me re-locate them by following regulations/laws. (big thanks to her). During that process, I learned the laws and did tons of research on Muscovy Ducks. Two more clutches were born afterward and each clutch had several babies develop Spraddle leg which prompted me to help and I became fascinated with the ducks and surprised at how smart they are.

Location: Big reclaimed water lake. Predators are a couple otters, Tons of turtles, one hawk, one vulture, and one big eagle. Tons of other mallards, wood ducks, geese, and of course other muscovies.

My rules: After learning laws and regulations as well as my own area/property laws, I must be strict and mindful in any actions I take. I will not be capturing/rehabbing now that I know regulations but I will allow myself to intervene if a baby duckling gets separated by taking it back to its mother. If it falls behind again then I will have no choice but to assume its not gonna make it. This is mostly for documenting purposes and showing a clutch live in the wild for its first two months. So please understand as you follow along, I have hands tied behind my back due to laws and in some cases moral reasons.

Clutch notes: This particular clutch is the same mother duck in which I saved two of her babies above. She seems to be standout mama duck with experience. Official egg count was 13. Babies began hatching September 11th midday. It may take a day or two before I see all the ducklings and can count them as she is still on her nest. I expect them to move to the lake by tonight (9-12-24). Maybe after their first week or two we can have a little bit of fun and try naming some of the more unique looking ones?


September 11th 2024: (Born)

Here is mama duck with broken eggshells to the side and some wet freshly hatched ducklings under her. I am being extremely careful to not make her worried or fearful so she doesn't stomp around. As I take pictures, I am using any movement or heavy breathing by her as a sign to step back. We are here to observe and follow along making sure we do not have any negative influence on her or her babies.

September 12th 2024: (Day 1: Ready to go)

This picture is in the early morning. The babies have fluffed up and are getting curious. The count so far is 10 have hatched. There could be more under her though. I will wait until she leaves the nest with her babies before I go in and MAYBE see if there are any stragglers that could use help hatching. Conditions for hatching aren't optimal this week but 10 did make it to be fair. The fur on these babies suggest these will be black/dark green muscovies.

PM update: Its been horrible rainy weather all day. I saw her move to the lake for an hour but then back to the nest. That did give me time to inspect the nest and all eggs were split open and no duckling perished during the hatching process. Still haven't been able to get a full count but she has AT LEAST 10.

September 13th 2024: (Day 2: TBD)

 

[Miss Lydia]

Nothing more precious than a mama and ducklings

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

Well I made a mistake with my formatting, Thought I could just edit my initial post once a day with updates so it was easier to follow along but the edit button disappeared. We'll go with new posts.

September 13th: (Day 2)

AM+PM update: Mama duck and hatchlings are MIA. Could not find them around the lake nor in their brood spot. Tried again in the PM and still could not find them Lots of places to hide on a different property on the lake so its possible she took them to a different spot for the day. Wanted to get an official count before their first adventure but we'll try again tomorrow

September 14th: (Day 3, 10 ducklings)

AM update: Bingo. Mama duck found with official count of 10 hatchlings. She even surprised me by allowing me to get within a few steps of her and her babies. I took small slow steps and let her decide what was okay. Once she chirped, I stopped and backed up a step. She allowed me to take some good photo's. After the photo's some geese showed up and I helped her keep them away from the babies. Mama looks a bit rough after the long sit. Hopefully her down feathers come back quick.

Watching mama forage:

GEESE INCOMING!!!

Defensive posture!!!

Once I stood in front of them the geese took another path up the embankment away from the ducklings.

 

[Miss Lydia]

So adorable

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

September 14th: (Day 3, 10 ducklings)

PM update: Ducklings are doing well. Watched them navigate some terrain and keep up with mama duck. Perhaps we also saw the father drake? Its silver so wouldn't that produce full yellow ducklings instead of Brown/Yellow? This silver drake seems to keep near and actually doesn't peck the babies.

Pressing through the rain:

Mama pecked this wood duck into the lake a few seconds after this picture. Always respect mama or pecks are in order.

Bonus GIF: (Mama found something to eat)

Bonus Picture: This is the surviving ducks from mama's first clutch in May this year. The step siblings of our 10 ducklings. I fully expect the ducklings to match these two gals/one guy in color:

 

[Canadian Wind]

Lovely!

That drake actually looks Lavender to me, which if he was the father would mean the babies are split to it, since it's a recessive gene. Had he been silver, and him the dad, all the babies would have been blue.

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

Lovely!

That drake actually looks Lavender to me, which if he was the father would mean the babies are split to it, since it's a recessive gene. Had he been silver, and him the dad, all the babies would have been blue.

Do you know what colors are possible when the babies have yellow/brown fur? All I've seen born around here that make it to adulthood turn out Black with green iridescent feathers like the teen bird picture I posted above. I guess one young adult I saw was full black with white patches.

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

September 15th: (Day 4, 10 ducklings)

Side note: Unless something truely interesting happens, I might limit this to one update a day to prevent spamming this thread to the top of the forum too much.

So far we still have 10 ducklings despite the predators around and mama is now taking them for good long hikes and all of them are keeping up very well. Walking and hopping good.

In the woods looking for the good stuff:

Weird. While walking with them I just so happen to notice some small little green circular things on the ground in their path as we moved along just randomly on the ground. Im not sure but it look like peas

Puny Humans and their constructs.
but wait
Uh oh!, We have our first fluffy butt wipeout!!!

Good recovery troops!

 

[Canadian Wind]

Do you know what colors are possible when the babies have yellow/brown fur? All I've seen born around here that make it to adulthood turn out Black with green iridescent feathers like the teen bird picture I posted above. I guess one young adult I saw was full black with white patches.

Those ones will all be blacks, also. Don't know where that Lavender drake came from, maybe a release? Which ticks me off since I can't get them in Canada! Also ticks me off because people should NOT be releasing animals in the wild.

 

[Muscovy Duck Chronicles]

Those ones will all be blacks, also. Don't know where that Lavender drake came from, maybe a release? Which ticks me off since I can't get them in Canada! Also ticks me off because people should NOT be releasing animals in the wild.

Well it is law to never release Muscovies here. Still cant rule out someone dumped it because I see no other bird that could've produced its colors. Its literally unique here but we do have some weird colors here. Pics below. Everything else is black/green/white