The female lays 8-12 grayish-green eggs 1 time a year and incubates eggs alone for 4 weeks. The first time the drake is near the nest, but soon flies away. Care for the offspring lies entirely on the mother – not like the geese. Mother grows ducklings alone.
The ducklings that have just hatched from eggs are covered with yellow or brown fluff and can already swim. The mother leads them, barely born, to the water, diligently hides in the reeds, carefully watches the safety, heats under the wings, there, under the wings, the kids receive the fat lubrication they need – otherwise their fluffy clothes will get wet and the chicks will not be able to swim .
Mother teaches chicks and get food. At the slightest danger, she makes hoarse sounds and tries, even at the cost of her own life, to ward off the threat from the kids. They fly away from their parents at the age of 2 months.
The ducks build the nest together – the male wears the material, and the female puts it. Generally mallards – a pair of friendly. Sometimes idle drakes try to bring discord into their family life – they impudently swim too close, look at the duck. The male is calm about this, and the female is angry.
And orders the drake to drive the impudent man away. Yes, as orders! Beak, like a finger, pokes in the direction of the “offender” – he, they say, drive. And the drake drives. If there are several such “offenders”, the female points first to the most “brash”, then to another, the third – she chooses whom to drive first. And the male obeys her implicitly.
