- Related Topics:
- screamer
- Anatidae
- Anseranatinae
- wildfowl
- Anserinae
Most waterfowl are associated with fresh water as opposed to salt water, at least during the breeding season. Relatively few inhabit deep lakes and fast streams of low productivity. More prefer glaciated areas rich in shallow, productive lakes and marshes: the “pothole” country of North America, the silted deltas of rivers, and coastal marshes. An area with many small bodies of water will support more ducks than a single large lake, because shoreline is important. Such environments produce diverse food and provide isolation for breeding pairs, cover from predators, and shelter from winds. Paradoxically, periodic droughts are advantageous to ducks. Small lakes dry out and their bottoms become colonized with plants. When reflooding occurs, a rich diet of seeds and of invertebrate animals that feed on the decaying vegetation becomes available. Long-term or permanent droughts, however, can be disastrous. The increasing acreage of artificial water reservoirs only partly offsets the loss, for they are normally large, deep waters, of little use to waterfowl except for roosting.
The ability to migrate greatly increases the ecological flexibility of waterfowl. They can exploit summer resources of the northern tundra without having to evolve the encumbering adaptations needed to survive the winter there; they can move great distances to take advantage of local rainfalls in arid countries; they can retire to secluded areas when flightless and then seek the rich harvests of human-altered environments when fully equipped to face the dangers. There are many patterns of migration, some regular and in fixed, reciprocal directions, others varying with changes in weather. The distances covered also vary widely. The longest waterfowl migrations are probably those of the blue-winged teal (Anas discors), which nests up to 60° N in North America and winters beyond 30° S, a distance of over 9,600 km (6,000 miles). In the Old World the northern shoveler (Anas clypeata) has a similar distance of up to about 11,000 km (6,800 miles). The northern pintail and the garganey (Anas querquedula), which breed in the Siberian tundra and taiga and winter in the tropical swamps of Senegal and Chad, are even more remarkable in their adaptability.
The general timing of regular long-distance migrations has been built into an internal hormonal cycle over the course of evolution. These “annual clocks” are kept in synchrony by changes in day length, but the immediate factors initiating the stages of migration are climatic. A mass southward movement occurs when air pressure systems produce a favourable wind flow; overcast conditions or a warm spell may temporarily halt the birds; bright, cold conditions move them on.
Sudden adverse weather may cause considerable mortality, especially where a long sea crossing is involved, as from Greenland to Britain. But the effects of weather on waterfowl populations can be most drastic at the time of breeding. Late frosts and spring floods are catastrophic, especially when there is no time for renesting. Consequently, high-Arctic breeders may have near-complete reproductive failures. Brant geese (Branta bernicla) that winter in western Europe only produce successful broods of young in about half the seasons.
Parasites of many kinds inhabit waterfowl, generally in a state of tolerance, gaining the upper hand only when the bird is stressed in some way, as by food shortage. This is also true for fungal infections, particularly by Aspergillus, a common cause of death in captivity and, exceptionally, in the wild. Bacterial diseases take their toll and sometimes cause wholesale die-offs. Thousands of ducks have succumbed to botulism when shallow, brackish waters dry out in warm countries and the bacteria responsible multiply, producing toxins that cause a fatal paralysis if ingested. Fowl cholera (Pasteurella) sometimes causes epidemics. Mass mortality is also triggered by pollution, especially oil and pesticide spills. A peculiarly insidious danger is lead poisoning caused by the ingestion of lead pellets that accumulate in the mud of waters frequently shot over.
Humans are undoubtedly a major predator of waterfowl. Adult ducks, other than nesting females, suffer relatively little natural predation unless they are sick or weakened by hunger. The main predatory impact comes on the eggs and young. Crows and gulls, mink, raccoons, coyotes, foxes, ground squirrels, snakes, snapping turtles, bullfrogs, pike, and carp all take some toll. In normal circumstances such predation does not destabilize population dynamics, which are, after all, geared to a high rate of loss in the early stages. Predator-control measures have seldom produced any comparable increase in waterfowl production.
Beneficial relations exist with other birds and animals. Thus stifftails and eiders actually prefer to nest in association with the smaller gulls (Larus species). The latter tend to drive off predators and, by increasing the number of available eggs, relieve the pressure of egg predators. The muskrat clears water routes in reed beds and builds “houses” that are utilized by ducks for standing and nesting. Beaver dams create very attractive duck habitats. And, of course, man himself is not wholly destructive but creates some new areas for waterfowl and provides them with food, both unintentionally and on purpose.
Form and function
Anatomy
The characteristic features of the family Anatidae are the skin-covered, lamellate bill and thick, fleshy tongue. Screamers have a short nonlamellate bill, slightly hooked, like that of a domestic hen, and a horny tongue. Their bill is adapted for tearing aquatic plants. Among the waterfowl the basic bill has undergone a wide adaptive radiation. The geese have evolved strong, deep bills with hard, sharp lamellae. In some, such as the red-breasted goose (Branta ruficollis), the bill is short and slight, used only for grazing; in others, such as the snow goose (Anser caerulescens), it is long and heavy enough to dig for roots and tubers. The massive digging bill reaches maximum development in the magpie goose. The little pygmy geese (Nettapus species) are so called for their gooselike bills, but they actually feed on lotus seeds and water vegetation and neither graze nor root for food. The European widgeon (Anas penelope), on the other hand, grazes extensively, but its bill differs little from the typical duck bill—flattened with platelike lamellae. This is used for sifting particles out of mud or picking up food items from the lake bottom as the bird upends itself. The sieving bill is yet further developed in the shovelers and the pink-eared duck (Malacorhynchus membranaceus), the lamellae becoming extremely fine, enabling particles as small as diatoms to be taken from the surface film. The blue duck (Hymenolaimus malacorhynchos) has a rounded, expanded tip to the bill, which probably protects it when poking around sharp pebbles. The pochards have fewer lamellae and a narrower bill than the dabbling ducks. In the mergansers the lamellae have become toothlike projections in the long narrow bill, ideal for holding fish; additionally, the tongue has two dorsal rows of barbs. None has developed pickax bills or ones for crushing hard food items, such as mollusks. When such foods are eaten, they are broken up in the gizzard.
The legs and feet vary according to whether the main mode of progression is walking (as in geese) or swimming (as in divers). The latter have flattened foot bones to reduce water resistance on the forward stroke, the hind toe being lobed. Webs are fully developed between the front three digits, except in the magpie goose (primitively) and the Hawaiian goose, or nene, where it is believed that the greater flexibility of the toes makes for easier walking on broken lava beds. The claws on the digits are particularly sharp in forms such as the perching ducks, which normally nest in treeholes.
The wings are not of unusual structure but vary widely in shape, from the broad expanse of the slow and maneuverable fliers to the narrow sweeps of the fastest. Some of the whistling ducks have modified vanes on the outer primaries that produce a whirring noise in flight. The sighing creak of the wings of the mute swan (Cygnus olor) is well known. In a few cases the wing is so reduced in size that the bird is flightless, as is the Auckland Island race of the brown teal (Anas aucklandica). Many waterfowl have horny knobs on the wrist joint located near the end of the wing; in some there is a distinctly projecting spur, as in the screamers, the spur-winged goose, and the torrent duck. In the first two, the spurs are actually used to strike adversaries; in the last, they may be of more use in progressing over slippery rocks in a raging stream.
A structure that has received much attention, largely because of its taxonomic value, is the trachea. This may be straight (geese and ducks) or looped in various ways (magpie geese and swans), the most elaborate being that of the trumpeter swan (Cygnus buccinator). Here it first enters the sternum, flexing twice into horizontal and vertical bony pockets, then emerging again to coil around and back into the lungs. The analogy to an orchestral wind instrument is obvious, and a comparable sound is produced. Less obvious is the relation of shape to sound in the asymmetrical chamber (bulla) found at the base of the male trachea in most ducks. The male’s whistle certainly differs from the female’s quack, but it is difficult to account for the variation in bulla shapes—round and solidly ossified (dabbling ducks), angular with membranous “windows” (stifftails), or complexly membranous (mergansers).
The anseriform birds share with the curassows, tinamous, and ratites (ostriches, emus, rheas, and the like) the possession of an intromittent male organ. This is not homologous with the mammalian penis but is instead a vascularized sac everted from the wall of the cloaca. It is protruded by muscular action and retracted by an elastic ligament. This gives it a spiral form, and sperm pass along a groove to the tip. This organ doubtless facilitates copulation on the water. Its presence permits easy sexing of birds that lack differences in plumage between the sexes. The size of the organ also allows an estimate of the bird’s age. However, that is more safely done by determining the depth of the bursa of Fabricius, a glandular organ opening into the cloaca that diminishes with maturity.
