They are promiscuous and frequently desert their mates. They often exist in a ménage à trois, or have multiple partners. They commit gang rape and adultery and can even drown their partners in the process. As Chaucer once said of the ubiquitous mallard, ‘he is a stroyer of his own kind’. It is also said that it is largely due to living in close proximity to man that they have picked up undesirable habits. In their totally wild state they are supposedly not such serial philanderers. But it would seem far more likely that the reason for this behaviour is that males outnumber females by a large percentage and there are simply not enough girls to go around. The name mallard originated from the word maulard, from Norman times, and referred purely to the male of the species, the female being more commonly known simply as the wild duck. This vibrant and attractive bird is the ancestor of the farmyard duck and was first domesticated in the Iron Age. It has had many country nicknames in various areas of Britain, including stock duck, stockie, stocker, muir duck, mire duck, moss duck and grey duck.

For centuries the mallard was shot and lured into ponds and hill lochans with decoys, vast numbers being added to the game bag. Wildfowlers claim that shooting true wild duck at first light over a misted pond is fine sport indeed. Since the 1950s the birds have been reared and released purely for sport. Ironically, it is the artificial raising of duck that has swelled their numbers in the wild. Landowners and farmers are also becoming increasingly conservation conscious and are making new wet areas, providing ideal habitat for duck. The mallard may be common, but in its full breeding plumage, the drake with his head of green shot silk, daffodil yellow bill and brilliant orange legs is handsome beyond belief. Surely the mallard has to be admired in the same way as the fox; though persecuted mercilessly it bounces back regardless. And like Mr Tod it has adapted to both the most urban and the wildest existence.

Today’s townie duck seems to have developed a taste for the exotic, and where once it would have been lucky to have been thrown a little stale Mother’s Pride, now it frequently dines on naan, ciabetta, baguette, croissant and pitta. Once in a situation where food is readily available the birds become shamelessly tame and grow fat and idle. Mallard have become a common sight round fish farms. They hang around fish cages eating the spilt food, and on one farm have become so tame that they go in for self-service, helping themselves to open feed sacks in the sheds. Needless to say this is unpopular. As a child I loved to feed ducks and still do. It is the mallard that has brought joy to many a town child in its pushchair visiting the local park, and the mallard that is to be found wandering down the high street of many towns in Britain close to water. Living near to humans they inevitably meet with numerous catastrophes, and the young become easily separated from their anxious mothers. We have had ducklings handed in to us that were found peeping helplessly as they wandered pathetically round a shopping centre. Large broods crossing busy highways also cause problems, with people swerving to avoid disaster and often ending up causing mayhem.

There have been pictures in newspapers of policemen ushering ducklings across roads, and lorry drivers stopping to guide them across hazardous motorways. The mallard seems to touch parts of humans that other creatures fail to reach, and having had a great deal to do with them over the years, I understand why. Rearing several orphan ducklings together is straightforward, but the singletons prove more of a problem, becoming too tame and therefore readily imprinting on humans. We have acquired hen chicks of a similar age and reared them with them for company. This is fine until the young ducks are fully fledged, become airborne and only drop in for bed and breakfast, leaving their nest mates destitute. One single mallard ended up being taken to Loch Tay, where resident mallard take advantage of the constant streams of willing tourists. Having run the gauntlet of the neighbour’s tiger-like cats, and almost ended up in the jaws of several visiting dogs, we thought this would be the safest place and the bird’s only chance for a semi-wild existence. This young duck had a slightly lame leg so was easily recognisable. On the day we left it, it had been very reluctant to leave me. I hid behind a nearby building and watched it standing looking forlorn on the edge of the big duck flock, and left with heavy heart. Three months later I returned wondering if I might perhaps find the bird again. I was greeted by a mad flurry off the loch.

One small rather tatty lame duck came rushing up and leapt on to my knee. Despite very hard weather and being over-humanised, it had survived this far yet had still not forgotten its foster mother. Not all wildlife rehabilitation tales have such happy endings. One year a female mallard was brought to me supposedly with a broken wing, but like all mother ducks she had been feigning injury to lure a dog away from her brood. Needless to say the well-wisher who had picked her up could not remember the exact spot on the riverbank, and though we searched high and low, there were no signs of ducklings.

They would have quickly become a meal for predators. Mute swans will kill and eat young ducklings, as will pike, otter, stoat, mink, fox and dogs. Breeding, like most of a mallard’s life, is somewhat haphazard. A nest of sorts is made by the female and lined with grass and down. She will lay her eggs on the ground or in holes in the bank, on islands, in woodland or hollow trees. She will also readily use artificial nest sites and many that are highly unsuitable. At Perth Racecourse one bird chose the tub of pansies in the Winner’s Enclosure as the place to lay 14 eggs. Another nested under the seat of a boat moored on a loch and managed to rear a large brood despite several fishing trips.

After a frenetic breeding season, midsummer brings the moult. The flamboyant and argumentative drakes become drab and dreary and can even be mistaken for females. They hide away quietly, being flightless in their eclipse plumage. By September they have regained most of their former glory and the brilliant blue and white window on the wings of both sexes called the speculum. By November, as they move out to take advantage of stubble fields where spilt grain provides rich feeding, they begin to pair up again, with squabbles breaking out amongst the males as the breeding season approaches once more.