Planning

What When Stef Oliver

Section 1 x
Section 2 x
Section 3 x
Section 4 x
The experiment x x
Section 5 x
Section 6 x
Section 7 x

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The Mallard Duck; Feeding On Land VS Feeding In Water

Made by: Stef Foppele and Oliver Evrot

Class: TG3G

Teacher: mr. Scherf

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Table of contents
1. Introduction Page 4

2. Method and materials Page 5

3. Results Page 6&7

4. Conclusion Page 8

5. Sources Page 9

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Introduction
The Mallard Duck in general
The Mallard Duck, or Anas Platyrhynchos, is in the order of Anseriformes. This order puts almost 170
different species of birds and ducks together. The Mallard Duck is also family of the Anatidae, which
is a big family that consists out of mainly geese, swans and of course ducks, and in the subfamily
Anatines.
The Mallard Duck (adults) is about 50 to 68 cm long. The females weigh about 1 kilo and 100 grams,
the males weigh a little more, something about 1 kilo and 20 grams. The wingspan (when the duck
extends both of its wings to a maximum) can differ from approximately 78 cm to 1 meter.
Fun fact: Female Mallard Ducks can change their gender from female to male, when a female loses
one of her ovaries because of infection. Then, after that has happened, the female starts producing
different hormones, and eventually she will also change physically.
The Mallard Duck is probably the most common duck, and is found in Asia, Europe and North
America. It is the least shy duck, and breeds commonly with other duck species. The females come
back to their same territory every year for the breeding season. The Mallard Duck feeds itself on land
as well as in the water, which will be the main topic discussed in this research paper.

What should be expected from this research paper

So, as said before, the main topic that will be discussed in this research paper will be about the
feeding behaviour of the Mallard Duck. More specifically, its feeding behaviour on land, and in the
water will be researched and compared. This topic has been chosen for two reasons: firstly, the
Mallard Duck's feeding behaviour is interesting, and secondly, it's even more interesting to compare
two feeding behaviours in very different environments, in this case on the land and in the water.

5Research question and hypothesis

'What are the main differences in behaviour of the Mallard Duck when it's feeding on the land and in
the water?', is the research question, that will be tried to be answered in this research paper.
The hypothesis: The Mallard Duck will be eating different things in the water than on the land, and
therefore get it in possession and eat it in another way. It will also move differently depending on if
it's on the land or in the water. Other than that, it will not have much more different behaviours on
the land than in the water.

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Method and materials
The way this research is conducted is by starting off with studying duck behaviours studied by other
research papers. Then the research question was constructed and a planning was made. In order to
study behavioural patterns, a researcher would have to observe the ducks a few times, as it can’t be
specified what a duck’s most common behaviour is in one single observation. Therefore a table was
constructed where the researcher would fill in when, or how many times a duck acts out a specific
behaviour. The researcher takes note of the time. Every 10 seconds the researcher should note what
the duck is doing under the respective part of the table. This table can be found under the results.

The materials used to conduct this research:

- A stopwatch to measure the time;

- A paper, jotter or notebook with the table;

- A pen or pencil to note observations;

- One or more organisms researched;

- When the researcher wants to observe from a distance to capture the most natural and
uninfluenced behaviours of an organism, a binoculars could be utilized.

- If the behaviour seems new to the researcher, a camera could be used to save and further study the
new behaviour. This could also be used as source or proof that the research isn’t faked.

Further materials can be added to this list, but these items are all the things utilized for this research
paper. For the best observation of the organism in nature, a great way the researcher could research
without interfering with the creature would be by wearing camouflage and using binoculars to
observe from a greater distance. This research paper studied fairly tame ducks swimming in a lake in
front of a school. The organisms are usually fed by citizens in the area. Therefore the behaviors
studied and observed in this paper are not 100% natural and uninfluenced by humans.

The ducks weren’t fed for the research paper, as this wouldn’t be a natural feeding behavior studied
in this paper. When replicating this research there should be no or as little as possible interference
with the ducks.

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Results
In table 1 can be seen which behaviours will be looked at during the experiment.
They will be put in a table as abbreviations that are in the table. In the right column
of the table the way that will be watched at the behaviours is shown.
In the tables 2 and 3 will be put the results of the experiment.
Table 1:

Behaviour Abbreviation Explanation

Diving in the water DI Diving once is counted as
one. Diving is when the
duck's head and neck are
in the water (or the rest of
the body), for no matter
how long.
Drinking D Putting its beak in the
water, drinking, put the
beak again out of the
water: is counted as one.
Eating plants EP Taking one bite in any
plant on the land, is
counted as one.
Being in the water BI Going from the land into
the water, is counted as
one.
Being on the land BO Going from the water to
the land, is counted as
one.
Table 2:

s. min. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 BI - - - DI - - DI - -
20 BI - D - DI - - - - -
30 - - - DI - - D - - -
40 D D - DI - - - - - -
50 - - - - - D - DI - -
60 - - - D - - - D DI -

Table 3:

s. min. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 BI - - - - - - - - -
20 DI - D - - - - - - D
30 - DI - D - - - - D EP
40 - BO D - - - D - - D
50 - - - BI D D - - BO EP
60 - - D - - - - - - DI

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As can be seen in the results, the ducks weren't very hungry when the experiment
were done. They mostly were drinking, and in the last minute some went on the
land and ate some leaves from a tree. There were two sessions of ten minutes, with
approximately a five-minute break in between.

The results from table 2 are also shown in pie chart 1, and the results from table 3
are shown in pie chart 2.

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Conclusion
Research question:

'What are the main differences in behaviour of the Mallard Duck when it's feeding on the land and in
the water?'

After studying the Mallard duck for about 20 minutes, it appears that the ducks don't eat as much as
expected. Therefore, the results found in this study can't be focussed on the exact feeding behaviour
in ducks. For what has been gathered though, it seems that ducks will drink more than feeding either
in the water or on land. When the ducks get out of the water to waggle on the land, they seem to
prefer picking on plants over feeding on anything else found on the land. When in the water, it isn't
clear whether they are eating, drinking or just diving underwater to oil or prevent the sun from
drying them out.

So, the big difference between Mallard ducks feeding on the land and in the water is that the feeding
on land is much clearer compared to feeding in the water. They also seem to hugely prefer feeding
on the land.

The hypothesis is more correct though, as the ducks feed very differently on land, and the feeding in
the water is unclear. The movement with which the ducks move themselves around whilst eating on
the land is also indeed different from in the water. Many other differences weren’t found either, as
the studied ducks were clearly not hungry during the experiment. So that part of the hypothesis also
seems to be true.

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Sources
Iñigo Navarro. (2021). Can Ducks Change Gender? It’s Even Weirder Than That!
https://www.birdwatchingusa.org/can-ducks-change-gender
None. (2022, January). Canard colvert https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canard_colvert
None. (1996). Mallard
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/facts/mallard#:~:text=Habitat,are
%20commonly%20found%20in%20wetlands