THE yellowbilled duck is distributed throughout South Africa and is a common inhabitant of dams, pans, marshes, pools, sewage works and slow rivers, but rarely estuaries.
There are regular sightings of this bird on the Toti River bordering Hutchison Park. (Let us know where else have you may have spotted them?)
In Afrikaans, it’s known as the geelbekeend and in Zulu, iDada.
WATCH:
Calls of Yellow Billed Ducks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP_MFvrGMsA&feature=youtu.be
They are gregarious when not breeding. Their flight is fast and high, and it often calls especially at take-off. Females also quack like domestic ducks but males are usually silent.
Yellowbills feed mainly by dabbling in shallows or up-ending in deeper water. They rarely dive.
They also graze on land, gleaning grain from fields after reaping. They loaf for much of day on the shoreline in groups.
Other food sources are stems, tubers and leaves of water plants, and sometimes insects and their larvae.
Breeding is throughout the year, with the female producing four to 12 creamy or yellowish eggs laid in a grass-lined hollow in grass, reeds or matted tree roots, usually within 20 metres of a water source.
Incubation is 28 to 30 days. They are fledglings for 68 days and fly after six weeks.
DID YOU KNOW?
Click on the words highlighted in red to read more on this and related topics.
To receive news links via WhatsApp, send an invite to 061 694 6047
The South Coast Sun is also on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest – why not join us there?
Do you have more information pertaining to this story?
Feel free to let us know by commenting on our Facebook page or you can contact our newsroom on 031 903 2341 and speak to a journalist.
(Comments posted on this issue may be used for publication in the Sun)
