Duck Drive

Annual Duck Drive Earl Plato
It was early in the New Year , 2009. Elaine and I had not done one of our Niagara Duck Drives. Today, December 28th we started out from Fort Erie to Niagara-on-the-Lake. With bird glasses and camera we drove on an overcast day. The Niagara was glassy and peaceful. Canada geese and mallards in Fort Erie/ Then we saw them near Black Creek. It was not what I call a ‘raft” but a great multitude of ducks with swans and Canada geese mingled in. Thousands - no exaggeration. Canvas backs. common mergansers, buffleheads, scaups and did I see a harlequin duck? Elaine says “no.”Gulls at Niagara and Sir Adam Beck. Plenty of ring-bills, black backs and others. On to Niagara-on-the-Lake. River waters unusually calm. Car windows down. Would we hear the piercing call of the Long tails (Old Squaws)? Not a sound - not one in sight! More ducks? Yes. Last year traveling the Niagara parkway heading north we came upon an impressive sight. I photographed a raft of canvasbacks. We estimated at least 500 stretching in a long line on the edge of our Canadian shore line. There interspersed in smaller numbers in that raft were other ducks, the redhead. The redhead is a first-cousin to the canvasback. The redhead is an exceptional diver and flyer we are told. Short legs set to the rear of its body and its webbed feet mean that it is somewhat ungainly on land but in water or in air it’s a speedster. Why the Niagara? Redheads feed by diving as deep as 4 metres (14 feet). This capacity for diving depths allows it to fill its diet with 90% aquatic plant material. The Niagara river shoreland has an abundance of water plant food. The redhead consumes more such plant material well above the average for ducks. My question: Why don’t we see more redheads on the Niagara? In the air the redhead can reach speeds in excess of 80 kilometres per hour. That’s over 50 miles an hour! So? Listen, it’s an obvious asset for a duck that migrates such distances. “Survival of the faster,” I say. Hunters have to react in an instance. Then I recalled some of these colourful birds taking off. Know what I mean? On takeoffs they seem to literally run across the water surface for several metres before gaining the necessary momentum to take flight. Susceptible to the hunter’s gun? I would say so. Travel the Niagara and look and listen for our wintering ducks.