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Mallards swimming underwater like Divers (1 Viewer)

JRE

JRE

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Down at the local pond, I've noticed a brood of ducklings diving underwater, swimming for a few seconds, and then coming up again a few feet or even metres further on. What's happening? The adut female with them regularly up-ends like most Mallards, but the young are continually diving. There are no other birds on the pond that they could learn from, and the female, as I said, never does this. Do these birds usually do this?
 
The Firecrest said:
Down at the local pond, I've noticed a brood of ducklings diving underwater, swimming for a few seconds, and then coming up again a few feet or even metres further on. What's happening? The adut female with them regularly up-ends like most Mallards, but the young are continually diving. There are no other birds on the pond that they could learn from, and the female, as I said, never does this. Do these birds usually do this?
Click to expand...
I've seen adult mallards diving a couple of metres for food, think they learned it from the Tufti's at the local fishing lakes ( Boilies are very nutricious? ( doesn't look right ) / tasty )!.
 
The Firecrest said:
Down at the local pond, I've noticed a brood of ducklings diving underwater, swimming for a few seconds, and then coming up again a few feet or even metres further on. What's happening? The adut female with them regularly up-ends like most Mallards, but the young are continually diving. There are no other birds on the pond that they could learn from, and the female, as I said, never does this. Do these birds usually do this?
Click to expand...

Hi Firecrest - yes I've seen this a few times now. The first time it gave me a bit of a shock and thought I'd got the wrong species.

Quite funny to watch, as they pop up like corks!

D
 
delia todd said:
Hi Firecrest - yes I've seen this a few times now. The first time it gave me a bit of a shock and thought I'd got the wrong species.

Quite funny to watch, as they pop up like corks!

D
Click to expand...
So did I when I first saw it happen. Never scrutinised a Mallard so much in my life! What beats me though, is that they've nothing to learn from. The adults don't do it, and there's no diving ducks for at least 11 miles! The only other inhabitants of the pond are Moorhens.
I agree, they are lovely to watch, came to within 5 feet of me last night.
 
Perhaps for some reason they don't have the right buoyancy or some technical thing to be able to upend effectively, but try their hardest and end up diving?

Just an unlikely idea
 
It's a characteristic of both young and adult that's just not mentioned much in some publications.
Tom.
 
Adults do it a lot, and seem quite excited when they do, almost like in a frenzy. It's always struck me as maybe related to preening/bathing. I don't think it's to do with feeding at all, as they're often quite vocal and don't dive very deep. I've seen Greylag geese doing it too - now that's a sight!
 
I only saw a Mallard dive and swim quite a ways underwater once but it was quite a surprise and she was good. We were at the local zoo and two grizzly bears came down to their little pond to frolic. Well they found the Mallard in their pond and tried their best to catch it. It escaped (barely and no pun intended) by diving - crossing the pond underwater and exiting through the overflow.
 
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