Mallard Diver

There are two sorts of ducks: divers and dabblers (think head and shoulders under water, tail high in the air). According to the authoritative ornithology site at Cornell, mallards are of the dabbling sort who "almost never dive". So I feel privileged to have observed a mallard who almost never dabbles. It is a juvenile who is always accompanied by his mother, who doesn't dive. What might account for this precocious diving juvenile?

He was too young to have observed the diving ducks on the pond before they left in spring. Perhaps he is a young iconoclast duck. Or perhaps diving preceded dabbling on the evolutionary vector and his primitive brain is reasserting itself. Or perhaps he is cross-breed of some type.

His diving motion is identical to the divers we have seen on the pond, very smooth. He stays under water for around 7 seconds and moves perhaps 10 feet before resurfacing. While down, he pushes his bill through the soft sediment on the pond bottom. He seems an expert underwater swimmer. It appears his ability comes from his genes.

Here he is on a dive, then with something he dredged from the bottom, and lastly his mother, who just floats nearby wondering whose kid this is?

Update: This afternoon, every mallard on the pond is diving. Clearly, this is a standard, if secondary, behavior of mallards. I wonder if the juvenile's behavior was an influence on the others; mallard see, mallard do. Perhaps conditions on the pond do not provide enough food for dabblers this summer. The pond has been treated with an aquatic herbicide and the shallow parts don't have much vegetation right now.

In other pond action, we have had at least two bald eagle visits. When spotted, the pond mallards go berserk, squawking loudly and in unison as she makes her lengthwise pass over the pond. She doesn't slow and try to hover, just swoops across at about 15 feet above the surface. Eagles take fish and ducks and anything easy, including carrion. By the time I hear the ducks and get out to watch, she is just leaving, so haven't seen much of the action to date.