TRAVELS OF WATERFOWL 



Ducks and geese have a rather broad vocabulary above the level of the 

 contact-call, special voicings that identify the situation as well as position. 

 In situations related primarily to survival there is a vocabulary which, like 

 the identification call, is not seasonal. It functions to identify the situation 

 at any time of the year : the presence of food, the contentment of safe loaf- 

 ing, alarm. The Mallard hen gives a rapid "tuckata-tuckata-tuckata" series 

 of notes in the presence of feed. A series of loud, descending quacks, which 

 Lorenz ( 1953 ) terms the "decrescendo call" and which hunters refer to as 

 the "hail call," is given only in undisturbed groups of Mallard. A low, single 

 "whank" is uttered in alarm. The feeding and hail calls are imitated the 

 world over by hunters to lure Mallards to the gun. The Canada Goose has 

 a distinct note for alarm and the presence of food. One of the most beauti- 

 ful utterances of waterfowl is the departure "song" of the Whistling Swan, 

 a melodious, soft, muted series of notes which in my experience always 

 precedes the take-off run when the birds are about to fly. This pre-flight 

 melody is probably the "swan song" of legend, for when a swan is shot and 

 falls crippled to the water, it utters this call as it tries in vain to join its 

 fellows in the sky. 



For each social group of the reproductive season there are notes that 

 identify the condition of the bird as well as the situation. These are pre- 

 sented only during the times of the year coinciding with the periods of the 

 reproductive cycle to which they are hinged. Such voicings are uttered by 

 and draw responses from only those individuals which, by reason of their 

 physiological condition, fit the special group of sexually active birds. In 

 prenuptial courtship, all drakes have notes that advertise their sexual status, 

 such as the catlike "mee-owh" of the Redhead drake or the sharp whistle 

 of the male Pintail. Only sexually active birds respond to this breeding- 

 season vocabulary. By following a group from prenuptial courtship to the 

 mated pair, we find some notes of the drake to be directed only toward 

 males, these no doubt constituting sexual challenge. Other calls and displays 

 are aimed primarily at the female. In the family group, both young and 

 mother have voicings delivered only in certain situations — that is, when 

 traveling, when escaping danger, when captured by enemy. 



All the notes of a duck are innate. The response of a fellow duck to those 

 notes may be inborn, as probably applies in courtship; or the voice of a 

 companion may be learned, as the young learn the call-note of the mother 

 (Fabricius, 1951). There is some interspecific response to calls identifying 

 situation. I have seen Pintails turn sharply toward the feeding call of a 



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