My Hero Duck

[TheDaringDucks]

I have a bit of a problem with my mallard drake, Geronimo. Over the last few months, he has become a little too big for his britches. He has absolutely no fear. Or at least when it comes to fight or flight, he will ALWAYS choose fight. Doesn't matter what it is, he struts his way right up to danger. He waltzes right up to the fence between us and our neighbors, looking to bite their dogs any chance he gets, or will go towards heavy machinery while it is running without a second thought (while quivering with anger lol).

Just yesterday, I was bringing my other month-old mallards outside (Geronimo is ~2 months older than them), while Geronimo was up, looking out a second-floor window (I let him fly down on his own in the morning). I was looking up at him, trying to call him down, when a BIG Cooper's hawk dive-bombed at my other mallards. At the same time, instead of ducking back inside, Geronimo rushed to leap from the window TOWARDS the hawk.

His sudden appearance bearing down on the hawk from above, along with some shouting and arm waving startled the hawk enough to drive it away before it could grab any of my other mallards. But after it was driven away and Geronimo had landed, he started waddling in the same direction after the hawk, like he was planning to square up with it!

He's not even a big mallard either. The hawk could have taken him just as easily as the ducklings! It tried to buzz us again one more time, but I hurried to herd all the ducks back to shelter, and luckily they are all safe and sound now.

But here's the funniest part to me. I thought Geronimo was protecting the month-old ducklings, which would have been a sweet thought. BUT my husband pointed out that Geronimo doesn't really care for the other younger ducks right now. He'd rather bite and bully them given the chance. My husband thinks Geronimo was actually trying to protect me, not the ducklings. What a hero

Now, don't get me wrong, I love how bold he is, but I just know it will get him into trouble at some point. As much as I like to think he charged the hawk to protect me, I wish I could get him to be a bit more of coward to save his own feathery butt instead!

Here's a picture of the nutter, my sweet, dumb wannabe-hero (he's not even old enough to have his drake colors yet! SHEESH):

 

[ruthhope]

All you describe is good, protective drake behavior.

I suggest you need shade cloth where your ducks forage to keep them from hawks' sight. My son's flock of pekins are too big for a hawk (but could be taken by an owl so we always get them inside their duck house before dusk) but his nextdoor but one neighbor had young chickens taken by a hawk. So the neighbor put up shade cloth over the chicken run and resolved the issue.

 

[KathiQuacks]

Good ducky right there!

Was he raised alone? I’ve had 2 ducks that were raised alone, and both were completely fearless like this until they joined a duck flock.

 

[TheDaringDucks]

I suggest you need shade cloth where your ducks forage to keep them from hawks' sight.

Definitely! The ducks are all housed indoors at the moment, and I've only been letting them out with my supervision (luckily I work from home, so I can take them out for good stints of 3 or 4 hours at a time). This arrangement is to keep them safe until I can get a proper outdoor area set up for them, which I am working on. Shadecloth is definitely at the top of my list In my area, we have to deal with all sorts of predators (raccoons, foxes, mink, and even a wolverine was sighted in the area a while back) so my setup is going to be a bit... robust.

Was he raised alone?

Haha, you nailed that right on the head. He was an "only child" until he was ~2 months old (I didn't want to raise him alone, but it took a while to get some ducklings to be his flockmates, but they are just a few weeks from being fully introduced and integrated, so he's "only-child"-adjacent at the moment). Maybe like yours, his nature is to be fearless, but he needs the nurture from a flock to realize he should be a little more afraid!

 

[Whitsr]

I love this story. I love the visual of a duck going to get a hawk like no big deal