Black duck. Illustration by Doug Pifer.
Starting in December, I look forward to seeing black ducks on the spring-fed pond beside the Fresh Water Institute on Turner Road. Sometimes they are on the downstream side of the culvert, at other times they’re swimming near a bed of watercress in the upper pond. The other day eight of them jumped warily out of the water and flew to the middle of the pond.
Black ducks aren’t really black, but a color somewhere between black and brown that the old nature guides used to call “fuscous.” In flight their all-dark wings are relieved by a violet-blue “speculum” of iridescent feathers on the topsides of the wings. The feathers lining the undersides of the wings are dazzling white, visible when the duck flies overhead. And unlike most ducks, male and female black ducks look similar.
I admire the understated beauty of black ducks. Years ago, as an art exhibitor at the Ward Foundation’s annual waterfowl festival in Easton, Maryand, I entered a decoy painting contest. Given an unpainted, life-sized wooden decoy with glass eyes, all contestants were supposed to paint it to depict a black duck.
I started with a base coat of flat black acrylic paint. I painted the duck’s head a dull shade of tan and added fine streaks of dark brown, a dark line through the eye, and a wider dark stripe along the top of the head. Then I carefully outlined all the black body feathers with fine tan lines. Many artists painted the violet speculum on the wings. I didn’t, because on a swimming bird that part of the wing is often hidden by the flank feathers. I painted the bill yellow mixed with olive green, with black trim on the nostrils and on the tip of the bill. My admittedly over-simplified entry took no prize, but I thoroughly enjoyed the exercise. I believe every artist sees things differently.
My favorite piece of art featuring the black duck is the design of the 1940-1941 Federal Duck Stamp. Duck stamps back then were reproduced in black and white. The artist of this stamp, Francis Lee Jaques, portrayed the pair of ducks flying over some reeds, just as a duck hunter might see them. His lovely rendering of their white wing linings and elegantly shaped bodies say “black duck” to me like nothing else.
Sometimes called black mallards, black ducks spend the winter here, following the rivers and tributaries inland from the Chesapeake Bay. Most of them spend the winter just off the Atlantic Coast southward to North Carolina, roosting in flocks on open water and feeding in bays and estuaries. They breed in northern forests and muskeg bogs in boreal Quebec and northern Ontario, and southward into Maine and other New England States. There, they nest on the ground, sometimes far from water. Their winter diet is largely vegetarian but in summer the ducklings and adult ducks consume considerable pond life, chiefly aquatic insects, mussels, and crayfish. Because of their shyness and a tendency to gather in flocks far offshore of large bodies of water, black ducks are a challenging quarry for duck hunters,
During the 1980s and 1990s black ducks suffered a major population decline. Biologists list several causes, including pesticide use that caused their eggshells to soften and break, and the draining of marshes for mosquito control. Many ducks also die of lead poisoning after they ingest lead pellets while feeding in marshes and wetlands shot over by hunters. Federal restrictions on lead shot have helped alleviate this problem.
Also, the loss of suitable breeding and wintering habitat caused black ducks to move into areas that contained the more common mallards. Closer association with a similar duck species resulted in increased hybridization between black ducks and mallards. Black duck-mallard crosses are among the more frequent hybrids that birdwatchers see. A black duck with touches of iridescent green on its head, or white edging on the violet wing speculum feathers, is likely to be a mallard-black duck cross.
Since 2000, Black duck numbers have begun to increase. We can thank duck hunters for that. Funds collected through taxes on shotgun ammunition and component parts, and through purchasing of the mandatory Federal Duck Stamp, have financed government programs to improve and restore duck habitat.
Doug Pifer is an artist, naturalist, and writer. He has a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Penn State and has been an editor and art educator. His illustrations have appeared in various books and magazines and he has been a contributor to The Observer for several years. He lives with his wife and assorted animals on 5.7 acres in a historic farmhouse near Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
By Doug Pifer