The Real Mallards of Raccoon Township

By P.C. Zick – @PCZick

My own backyard as the setting of the next biggest reality show to hit the airwaves since Love in the Wild, I imagined. Since there’s a reality show for everything and anything, why not follow the antics of those wild and crazy mallards wandering in our yard and garden in recent weeks?

It started innocently enough. One day a couple, obviously in the mating stage of love, showed up in the backyard. The male held his neck high in the air exposing his shiny green neck to the wind while she kept her beak in the dirt. Their actions represented their respective appearances very well. His beauty acts as a decoy to her undistinguished brown, black, and white feathers as she searches for food in the dirt.

One morning when I came outside to take a few pictures of the wandering couple, the male had disappeared and the female continued her beak-in-the-soil pursuits. That’s when I decided to learn a little more about this duck strutting in our space.

The name mallard comes from the Latin word for “male” and refers to the male mallard’s habit of not hanging around to help raise the ducklings. So when the male disappeared, I assumed the female had laid the eggs somewhere on the property, and Mr. Mallard decided it was time to get out of the territory.

That’s not exactly what happened. I learned it was a little early for the nesting process. She’s just getting her fill of food in order to do the job of incubating the eggs when she does sit on the nest, sometime in early May. The male returned within a day, but he came with a surprise. He was now following another female and kept her close to his “first wife” as he continued the ritual of standing guard as the two soon-to-be mothers dabbled in the dirt.

My husband and I laughed at the spectacle and that’s when I thought of the reality show idea. If the not-so-real housewives of New York and Atlanta can parade as “real” anything, then why wouldn’t the antics of three mallards in Pennsylvania stand a shot? If a show called, Lady or a Tramp, can make it to TV, why not a show about wildlife gone truly wild in a place called Raccoon Township?

However, this morning my hopes were dashed when my husband appeared in the door of my office as I began writing this blog.

“Those ducks have got to go. They just think they can rule the roost,” he said. “Now one of them has made a bed in my onions. We let them get away with it, and now they think they can do anything.”

So I went back to my search on mallards, this time inputting the phrase “How to get rid of mallards in backyards and gardens.” The suggestions I found offered humane solutions: stand plastic wildlife, such as owls and swans, or even a blow-up alligator, next to the pool or garden. To honor my past Florida life, I do have two plastic flamingos in the herb garden. I realized the ducks never go over there so I offered to let my husband borrow them. He wasn’t keen on the idea of pink birds guarding his precious vegetables.

I also told him that spraying water at them would let them know this wasn’t the Holiday Inn.

“The hose,” he said. “That’s a great idea.”

The best comment I saw on some of the sites offering solutions to the mallard problem was the one I often thought about residents who complained about wildlife when I worked for Florida’s wildlife agency: “If you don’t want wildlife in your yard, perhaps you shouldn’t live in the country.”

Living in peace with wildlife, even the polygamists, is possible. But I think my idea for a reality TV show was just hosed.