It’s Easter Monday and I’m staring out my picture window at Loon Lake. It’s a wonderful time of the year; that time when the lake shadows of winter magically turn into the reflections of spring. The songbirds have returned to nest and the geese and ducks are winging their way to their summer homes. This marks the end of my fifth winter as a permanent resident of Muskoka, although my family and myself have been cottagers for twenty years.
The ice has been out for close to a week and I’ve been treated to the fascinating mating rituals of the Bufflehead Duck. The Buffleheads are a diving breed, feeding underwater much the same as their larger, more awkward Loon cousins. As I write, I am watching their courting display where six black, green and white pretty boys vie for the attention and affection of a much smaller and rather homely brown female. They dance, dip and dive to pique her interest and follow wherever she leads, all the time showing off their varied degrees of talent. Some males are so bold, that they follow in groups of three or four and so closely, you can almost hear ‘Do I have to get a restraining order boys?’ They know, however, it's time for her to make a decision and they're all screaming 'Pick me…Pick me!' I'm not certain how the final choice is made, so I can only speculate that it could be love at first flight or the size of his flippers.
It makes me wonder what happens to the losers after she has chosen her partner. Surely mating season ends at a similar time for all Buffleheads. Do the remaining males lower their standards and pursue the less attractive or infirm wallflowers of Buffledom? Do they meet at the local watering hole and exchange exaggerated stories of past conquests? Do they gather up their dignity and the pieces of their broken hearts and return from whence they came, to live and court another day? I wonder if they slip into protective denial, curious as to what they ever saw in her in the first place. Perhaps the un-chosen might take one final dive, as the rejection and pain prove all too much!
A few days have passed and yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner. Buffy has chosen the perfect partner to father her offspring. They swam together, fished together and generally basked in the glow of newfound love. The other rejected male voyeurs watched from a distance while tending their wounded hearts and pride, occasionally closing the gap and crossing the line that the lovebirds deemed appropriate, only to be chastised by the hero of the day and chased away with wings slapping the water in a threatening manner. This slapping of the wings, I came to understand, was also part of the mating ritual and seemed to be a type of foreplay.
Well, a few days passed before I saw them again. A loose flock of ducks came in for a landing a few hundred yards off the shoreline. When I focused my field glasses I discovered the flock consisted of eight female Buffleheads. Not a male to be seen! I could only assume that the girls had gotten together for a community baby shower or to trade secrets on raising ducklings. Anyway, they seemed to be having fun diving and just hanging out. Quite a hen party! I don’t know if this was a permanent parting of the ways and who left whom, or just a girl’s night out. I’m not certain, but I believe the females may have grown weary of the adolescent behavior and the constant attention and competitiveness of the males. Boys will be boys.
Dan Blix
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