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The Black Duck Society
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American Black Duck Information>
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Like other dabbling ducks, the American Black Duck takes off from the surface of the water by rising straight up into the air, unlike the diving ducks, which run along the water to become airborne.

The sooty-brown American Black Duck (Anas rubripes) is a common sight in ponds and marshes in eastern Canada. Nevertheless, this hardy duck has been a focus of concern among conservationists in recent decades. Once the most abundant dabbling duck in eastern North America, the black duck began a serious population decline in the 1950s, and its populations reached all-time lows in the early 1980s. Now, populations are steady, but there are only about half as many black ducks as there were 40 years ago.

Range and habitat

The black duck is found in eastern and central North America, largely east of the Great Plains and south of the tundra (see map). The black duck occupies a variety of habitats across its breeding range. In Canada, the highest breeding densities of black ducks occur in the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence River region of mixed forests. On the Atlantic coast and on the St. Lawrence estuary, the black duck is particularly abundant in coastal marshes. In northern Ontario and Quebec, countless lakes, ponds, and streams provide an extensive but sparsely populated breeding area. Small groups of black ducks also winter in southern Canada (see map), both inland, at ice-free sites where there is abundant food, and on the Atlantic coast, in bays and estuaries.

Habitat losses on both breeding and wintering ranges have contributed to the decline in numbers of Black Ducks. So has an expansion of the range of another common dabbling duck, the Mallard, into its breeding area. In the early days of European settlement, the Mallard was found only in unforested habitat in the west, since then it has expanded its range eastwards into that of the American Black Duck, to which it is closely related and with which it often interbreeds.

Appearance

Male and female black ducks resemble the female Mallard in size and appearance. Their brown bodies are darker than the Mallard's, however, and they lack her whitish outer tail-feathers and prominent white wing bars. The black duck's head and neck are a lighter brown than its torso, and there is a beautiful puplish-blue patch, or speculum, on the wing. In flight, the black duck is identifiable by the flash of its white underwings.

The black duck is the only common duck in eastern North America in which the sexes are almost identical in appearance. The colours of the legs and bill may be used to determine the age and sex of these ducks, however. These differences led to an earlier belief that there were two subspecies of black ducks a northern, red-legged race, and a southern "common" one. Bird banding data has demonstrated conclusively that this is not the case.

About 5% of the wild ducks that look like black ducks in eastern North America (in some local areas the percentage may be much higher) are actually hybrids, the result of cross-breeding between blacks and Mallards in the wild. Hybrids are difficult to detect by their plumage, but watch for black ducks with traces of green on the sides of their heads and traces of white bordering their blue speculums. Conversely, if you see birds that look like Mallards with some black duck features, they are also hybrid offspring of black duck Mallard pairs. The American Black Duck most likely evolved from an ancestor of the Mallard.

Voice

The call of female black ducks is a loud quack or series of quacks, indistinguishable from the call of female Mallards. The males have lower, softer, and shorter calls more like a low reedy "quek."

Breeding

The female selects the nest site, usually in a clump of grass, under a shrub or tree, or in a hole or fork in a tree, near the ground. She digs a scrape using both feet and her bill, then lines it with grasses, leaves, and other dry plant material. She plucks down from her body and adds it to the nest during the approximately 1-2-week period when she is laying her 7-12 (9 on average) creamy white, or sometimes greenish-buff, eggs.

Incubation takes up to 29 days from the laying of the last egg. Whenever the female leaves the nest during this time, she covers the eggs with down to keep them warm; the male remains nearby for another 1-3 weeks but does not sit on the eggs. As incubation progresses the males become more and more restless and leave the sitting females for increasing stretches.

Around the time that the first eggs pip and the ducklings get their first view of the world through the jagged hole in the shell, the males fly to the nearest large body of water and congregate in the middle of it. Here they moult, remaining flightless for about 10 days until their new primary feathers grow in. Their protection from enemies, such as people, hawks, and owls, at this vulnerable time depends on the fact that it is impossible to approach them unseen on their open lake. They dive to escape danger.

The chicks hatch within a few hours of one another. Soon after hatching they are led to water by the female. If the nest is far from water and the spring run-off has dried up, this journey may be long and arduous for the young ducklings.

The surface of streams, lakes, marshes, and ponds at this time of year is a nutritious soup of mosquito larvae and other aquatic invertebrates. This is the sole food of the ducklings for their first two weeks. They go on to larger items, such as tadpoles and snails, as they grow stronger, and finally begin dabbling for the seeds and tubers of a variety of aquatic plants, as the adults do at this time of year.

The female guards the ducklings closely for 7-8 weeks until their first flight feathers appear. Then, leaving the young to feed and learn to fly, the female retires into a secluded area to moult. She loses her flight feathers, also remaining flightless for about 10 days until a complete set of new feathers grows in. As soon as the young are capable of flying from the marshes to the open lakes they leave the females and join the males. Later the females arrive one by one, flying out of the marshes on their newly feathered, shining wings.

Fall migration and wintering

As temperatures drop and the feeding areas freeze over one by one, the southward migration starts. The onset of migration is earliest (early September) in northern interior parts of the black duck's range and follows a broad front southwards and towards the coast. North American waterfowl migrate along one or more of four major flyways: the Atlantic, the Mississippi, the Central, and the Pacific. Most black ducks follow the Atlantic Flyway, but about a third of them use the Mississippi. There is no mass movement of black ducks, as occurs with some prairie ducks. The black ducks move in groups of 20-100, leapfrogging each other from one area of good food to another.

When the northern birds reach southern Canada they encounter waterfowl hunters in significant numbers for the first time. Black ducks are naturally alert and wary, and they are among the most difficult of all ducks to deceive. To survive, they must learn to avoid decoys, calls, and blinds. They spend the daylight hours in "rafts" (flocks on the surface of the water) far out on large bodies of water where they cannot be approached, coming in to feed in fields of grain stubble or in freshwater marshes only at dusk and leaving at the first streaks of dawn.

By the first week of November, migrating black ducks have reached their northernmost wintering areas along Lakes Erie and Ontario, the St. Lawrence River, and the Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy south. A few winter in the jagged bays of Nova Scotia. Grand Manan and the surrounding islands hold some, but most press on south.

Along the Atlantic coast, migrating black ducks mingle with other birds Black, Surf, and White-winged Scoters, as well as Oldsquaws, Harlequin Ducks, eiders, Canada Geese, and Brant, and this host moves south to the great bays and sounds of the wintering grounds of the mid-Atlantic coast. As the migration progresses, the black ducks from farthest north drop out, Free Travel Infoling just far enough south to assure an unfrozen food supply. Migration tapers off in early December.

In the interior of the continent, large numbers of black ducks winter in the marshes and river valleys south of the Great Lakes.

All ducks tend to return in fall and winter to the same marshes that they visited the previous year, but this trait is most pronounced in the black duck. When tidal feeding areas have become frozen in New England, some blacks have starved rather than migrate farther south to unfamiliar ground.

Animal foods such as periwinkles, mussels, and various snails become increasingly important to black ducks wintering on the coast. Birds inland continue to eat the seeds and other parts of various aquatic plants. Waste corn in harvested fields is an important food in late fall and winter, whenever it occurs near water areas used by the ducks.

Adult black ducks begin selecting a mate in the fall, and probably most are paired by mid-December. Immatures begin pairing somewhat later, but almost all black ducks arrive paired at the breeding grounds in the spring.

Management and Conservation
The decline in the black duck population between the 1950s and the 1980s occurred for a variety of reasons, including habitat losses in both breeding and wintering areas, hunting, and competition for nesting sites and hybridization with Mallards. In Canada during that 30-year period, habitat loss in the agricultural and industrialized areas of southern Ontario and Quebec led to serious declines in black duck breeding populations. Subsequent surveys of black ducks indicated that the Canadian population was stabilizing. In the remaining forested breeding habitat, including most of northeastern Ontario, boreal Quebec, and the Atlantic provinces, black duck breeding populations were stable or increasing.

As an initial response to the continental decline of black ducks, the United States (in 1983) and Canada (in 1984) tightened hunting restrictions. In Canada, further tightening of restrictions was needed, and the improved regulations were introduced in 1989 and 1990. The average number of black ducks killed by hunters yearly has fallen by about 26 % in Canada since 1989 (1989 92), compared to the average hunting kill before 1984 (1979 83). The corresponding drop in the U.S. was about 44 %. The signing of the joint Canadian American North American Waterfowl Management Plan (NAWMP) in 1986 was another important step forward in the conservation of the black duck. NAWMP is a plan to protect and enhance wetland habitat throughout North America. It aims to restore the populations of ducks, geese, and swans to the levels of the 1970s.

Large-scale aerial surveys of breeding populations of all species of eastern ducks, Canada Geese, and some non-game species initiated in 1990 by the Black Duck Joint Venture, a working group under NAWMP, are providing important data for an ongoing analysis of breeding population trends.

In wintering areas, wildlife managers face problems posed by the degradation and destruction of black duck habitat. For example, mid-Atlantic coastal areas have been affected by ditch-building to control mosquito populations, coastal lagoon and housing developments, and environmental contamination by pollutants.

There is no solid evidence of major decreases in quality or quantity of breeding habitat for black ducks since the late 1980s, except in specific areas, such as those disrupted by the James Bay hydroelectric project. An increase in beaver populations may even be creating more wetland breeding habitat.

In shared habitat, competition and cross-breeding with the genetically dominant Mallard could be contributing to the decline of the American Black Duck as a distinct species. Since 1940, about 1.7 million game-farm Mallards have been released within the range of the black duck. Not only does this exacerbate the problem of hybridization, it also increases competition for breeding sites, because both species appear to prefer wetlands with similar characteristics.

Toxic chemicals also affect the black duck breeding population. The traces of DDT that remain in the food chain today are believed to have minimal effects. (The U.S. banned DDT in 1971, and Canada has phased out its use.) However, the less persistent toxic chemicals now being used for spruce budworm control can cause temporary reductions in the aquatic invertebrate foods (e.g., insects and tiny water animals) available to ducklings. When acid rain or snow causes water to become acidic, many invertebrates die, causing ducklings to starve.

Lead poisoning from lead shot and fishing tackle has caused death and sublethal effects in waterfowl for over 30 years. Lead poisoning may weaken birds, so they are more susceptible to disease. In Canada, lead-free hunting zones have been set up in areas where the problem is serious, and in the U.S. there was a ban on lead shot in 1991. Ducks' exposure to lead is expected to decline.

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