Gray Neck of the 21st century: why are ducks considered in winter?

Do you know that duck counting in Moscow water bodies has been carried out since 1981? It was then, in December, that students from the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy calculated for the first time how many waterfowl were left to spend the winter in Moscow. Approximately 1000 drakes and more than 870 ducks were counted in five urban areas.

And in 1985, on January 13, the All-Union Ornithological Society – now it is called Menzbirovsky – decided to check how the number of ducks had changed over three years and again conducted a census of waterfowl. Since then, it has been held every year.
Just try to imagine: January 1985. So far, the Soviet people have finished the New Year holidays. In distant America, the first Internet domains have just appeared. At the end of January, Ronald Reagan will become President of the United States for the second time, and in March, Konstantin Chernenko, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, will die.

Now society has changed beyond recognition, the map of the world has been seriously redrawn … But in Moscow, as before, in winter, in January, ducks are counted every year.

And, in fact, why in winter? We all remember Mamin-Sibiryak’s fairy tale “The Gray Neck” – about how bad and scary a duck is to stay for the winter. Almost ate the fox!

So let’s ask the first question: why do they stay?

But in this fairy tale there is one very important key for understanding – both literally and figuratively. The Old Duck says to the Gray Neck: “If you could be transferred to a warm spring that does not freeze even in winter, it would be quite good.” And before flying away, he advises Gray Sheika to stay on the bank where a stream runs into the water – there the river will not freeze until spring.

“Ducks first of all need open water,” confirms Nikolai Kudryavtsev, head of the Department of Environmental Education and Animal Records of the Directorate of Natural Territories “Valley of the Setun River” of the GPBU “Mospriroda”. “That’s the most important thing for them. In any, even in very cold water, there will always be food – crustaceans, algae, small fish, mollusks. If the water is not frozen, if the ducks can get to all this, then they will stay. Even if you don’t feed them.

Hence the second question: why is there so much open water in our city? Why does Frost the Governor work so badly?

There was a time when all water bodies in Moscow froze in winter. In the era of Ivan the Terrible, for example, a fair was even held on the ice of the Moskva River opposite the Kremlin! And the fair is not only hundreds of people, but also heavily loaded carts pulled by oxen. The ice somehow withstood all this – not like now! Were the frosts so much stronger then today?

Frosts, of course, will decrease, but not so much, explains Nikolai Kudryavtsev. The main thing is that the energy of the city has seriously changed. Instead of wood-burning stoves – albeit in every house – huge thermal power plants appeared, which all year round dump completely clean water at a temperature of 10-15 degrees into reservoirs. Pipes with hot water are laid underground – have you seen strips of earth in winter on which snow does not hold? In a word, the city generates a lot of heat that warms the earth, warms underground sources, warms surface water bodies. As a result, even in cold winters, there are a lot of open reservoirs in Moscow.

We ask the third question: after all, why are ducks counted in winter and not in summer?

“The fact is that ducks appear in Moscow in winter, which arrive from the North,” explains Nikolai Kudryavtsev. “They don’t nest here, they just hibernate. Most of them are in Kolomenskoye. These ducks are wild, they fly from sparsely populated places, they are not used to humans. And in Kolomenskoye the river is wide, there is a lot of open water, ducks can stay far from the shore, away from people. So they are comfortable there.

For wintering, goldeneyes, sluts, mergansers, black sea dwarfs fly to us. They usually fly off to the south. For example, the goldeneye flies from its taiga lakes to the Black Sea, the Caspian and the Adriatic. Well, if the unfrozen Moskva River turned up along the way, then why not spend the winter on it?

– Ducks are divided into two large groups: river and diving, – says Nikolai Kudryavtsev. – Divers can dive deep, get to the very bottom and get food there – small fish or shellfish.

Unlike mallards, which can do the most – stand in the water in a “column”. Diving ducks do not have to come close to the shore to get food.

The fourth question is who, how and where are they counted?

Accounting is carried out by Mospriroda specialists and amateur ornithologists. In some cases, the count may not be very accurate, because female mallards and common teals are very similar, and only a specialist can tell them apart.

In recent decades, there are more and more different ducks on Moscow reservoirs. And the point here is not only that the northern birds began to stop on our non-freezing rivers for the winter. New species have also appeared. For example, ogari – Muscovites are already accustomed to these large bright red ducks, like the sun. In their homeland, in the steppes, they nest in gopher burrows. In Moscow, there is a problem with gophers, even more so with their burrows, and the shelducks have adapted to attic life. The ducklings are so light that they calmly jump down from the attics, right onto the asphalt, and run to the water.

Far Eastern mandarin ducks also appeared in the capital. They were noticed on the Yauza. Probably someone brought it and released it. In their home country, mandarins nest in hollow trees, so it’s worth considering having enough hollow trunks for guests.

The main enemies of ducks in the city are herring gulls. These large birds of prey easily deal with ducklings. In addition, a fairly large population of foxes lives in Moscow. Seagulls and foxes are more likely to pursue weak, sick birds than healthy ones. And this means that pandemics will not occur in the “duck colonies”.

Well, what do ducks need from a person? First, that they should not be disturbed. Secondly, to have rafts on the water.

“There is no need to build houses,” Nikolai Kudryavtsev advises. – The birds will not live in them: they do not see danger in the house. And an open raft is needed for the chicks to dry off. After all, chicks, unlike adult ducks, have fluff, not feathers. And the coccygeal gland is poorly developed. Therefore, their fluff gets wet. And if the kids do not have the opportunity to dry – for example, if the banks of the river are lined with stone and they cannot climb out onto the shore – then they will drown.

And the third is that people do not poison them. And this, unfortunately, happens. And not from evil: we often think that we are feeding ducks, but in fact we are poisoning them. We give them fresh white or rye bread, muffins, salty, fried, smoked, fruits, nuts …

Ducks need to be fed with special compound feed – that’s exactly what you can do!

Yana MAYEVSKAYA.

Photo by Yulia Smagrinskaya.