{"id":35944,"date":"2013-03-18T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?guid=e64356b04309765ac3ef82a29c4be152"},"modified":"2026-07-16T08:00:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T07:00:22","slug":"duck-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/duck-romance\/","title":{"rendered":"Duck Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On the left, a male black duck. On the right, a female mallard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The duck couple I wrote about two weeks ago was mating on the pond in Brooklyn Bridge Park again today, Sunday, March 10, 2013.<\/p>\n

I photographed some of their courtship postures last time. Today I took a few shots of copulation, which is brief and happens in the water. They ended their courtship displays with mutual head-pumping. Then she extended her head and got low and flat in the water.<\/p>\n

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The male stepped onto the female’s back. If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you can see her head below the surface.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Grabbing her neck or feathers helps him keep his balance.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
He maneuvered his tail under hers to make genital contact. Above water we see a single thrust.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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It was over in moments. He stepped off. She floated up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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She enjoyed some post-copulatory splashing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Ta Da!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The duck couple I wrote about two weeks ago was mating on the pond in Brooklyn Bridge Park again today, Sunday, March 10, 2013. I photographed some of their courtship postures last time. Today I took a few shots of copulation, which is brief and happens in the water. They ended their courtship displays with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":2192850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-kzDBQzWgpQE\/UTz1py_fs1I\/AAAAAAAABII\/H6qT6rc2ktc\/s1600\/1","fifu_image_alt":"Duck Romance","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[3662,3661,3660,2450],"class_list":["post-35944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-black-duck","tag-brooklyn-bridge","tag-female-mallard","tag-julie-feinstein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}