Meditations: On Ducks, Minds, and Ethology
Duck Tales and Reflections on Our Duck-i-form Friends
Note: Is he just slightly untethered or totally unhinged? Only our AI research assistant and ghostwriter knows for sure. Isn't it just ducky? Everything's going swimmingly.
Author’s Preface
Donald Duck – A Duck’s Duck
Having grown up on Donald Duck comic books, movies, and cartoons, I figure I'm an authority on this topic. It's clear to me that there's more to ducks than appears on the surface. They have a hidden life. They can talk. They engage in social interactions. They amass money. Some even become millionaires. This is all well-known.
Growing Up - Ducks and Hunting
When I was growing up, with a father who was an avid hunter, ducks were something you put on the table—maybe filled with birdshot first, those nasty lead pellets. Well, that's the omnivore’s dilemma (pace Michael Pollan). As omnivores, we have to eat. Some of us become vegetarians. Some don't care a diddly squat. Some just feel guilty, like me.
I didn’t have too much exposure to ducks at all growing up, nor did I have a big interest in them. To my father, ducks were something you raised on a farm and ate, or something you shot as they flew over and ate. So, I didn’t really pay much attention to duck behavior.
My Interest and Background Learning about Ethology
Interest in Animal Behavior
So kidding aside. For decades, I've been interested in animal behavior, ethology, if you will. I read a lot; read some of the big-name popularizers, anyway. Occasionally, maybe delved into the actual literature, research literature, but not so often. Mostly the popularizers. I came to understand that animal behavior was complex but could be studied.
This article will be on observing ducks, duck behavior, sitting on a beach, watching a woman feed ducks, watching them swim around, grooming themselves, ducking in the water, one duck bullying another, flaring their wings out, and ethology. So, just to set the context, I'm going to be talking about my long-time interest in ethology and my observations sitting in a chair by a beach last night in the evening before the sunset watching ducks swimming on a lake.
Observing Duck Behavior at the Lake
There's a duck pond near our house, and you'd see a lot of ducks there, but I never really bothered to watch them until last night when I went to a nearby lake and watched ducks for a while, sitting on a chair and superficially noting their behaviors. I saw how they swim in clusters, and then there'd be some that would move away a few tens of feet—or meters, if you prefer.
As I sat on the beach in a chair, reading a book and watching the ducks congregate on the shore, near the water, they would swim around in circles, sort of adhering to one geographic location. There were a few ducks that were outliers, at a greater distance from the main body, but mostly they clustered.
Duck Behavior Observations
Swimming and Random Movements
And usually, they'd just swim around. They'd swim a foot, duck their head under the water, come back up again, do it again and again, changing directions almost randomly.
Feeding Response
They'd duck their bills in the water, bring them back up, swim a little bit, duck their bills in the water. I guess they were eating food, looking for food. I'm not sure just how they do that.They have filter beaks1.
Grooming and Preening
Occasionally, they would duck their head in the water and then groom their feathers. I don't know exactly what they were doing. The duck feeding woman (below) suggested that they were taking oil from some glands on their necks and rubbing it on their feathers to waterproof them. I don't know. Sometimes, they worked on their neck. Sometimes, they worked on their wings. It wasn't an attempt at complete coverage of the body. It wasn't as systematic as the licking of a cat to groom itself, but even there, there's a random component as to what part they groom.
Preening Explained
So they'd engage in other behaviors besides swimming around, constrained randomness. They would quite often stop and touch their feathers with their bills in various places, usually around the neck, but sometimes the wings and sometimes the tail, and I guess you'd call it grooming or preening behavior. I think those are the technical terms.
Uncertainty About the Source of Oil for Waterproofing
So I've been informed that this is to put oil on their feathers to waterproof them. There's some oil glands: ChatGPT says the tail, another person said the neck, so I don't know what the truth of it is, but they were doing this preening.
Social Hierarchies and Bullying
Another thing they would do besides swimming around, ducking their bills in the water, and preening was to bully. You'd hear squawking, and you'd see one duck fleeing a few feet, while another duck took over its position. I guess that's dominance behavior.
Flaring Wings Behavior
Every once in a while, you'd see a duck come into the shallow water, or maybe do it while in the deeper water, and spread their wings and stretch out as though they were going to fly. I do not know the meaning of this. They just elongated their bodies, stretched out of the water more, spread their wings, and then went back down to swimming.
Is this stretching, displaying for the benefit of others? I'm not sure what that's all about.
The Woman Feeding Ducks
So, a woman came down to the water with a bag of food, and she called the ducks. Her call didn’t register with me, but apparently the ducks heard her, unless they were responding to visual cues. The ducks came rushing onto the shore toward her, and she led them back to the water and gave them food, which they spent quite a bit of time eating as it floated on the water. I talked to her for a bit. She does this routinely; I had seen her feeding the ducks before. She explained that what she was doing was part of her larger animal welfare efforts and told me a little about it, though not much.
I was amazed at how the ducks knew to run up to her, recognizing her, showing a level of intelligence. I suppose I should not have been.
Ethology: Observational Science
So I've long been interested in ethology. I've read quite a bit. I don't know if this is correct, but it seems to me that ethology is mostly observational, with some stuff that maybe I'd characterize as quasi-experimental. Mostly it's observation and systematic recording of observations and, of course, interpretation of the observations.
Reading List of Authors
So here's my reading list of authors. Some I have not read for decades, but they all have stuck in my mind.
Birutė Galdikas – A key figure in the study of orangutans, Galdikas has spent decades observing these primates in Borneo. Her work highlights their complex social structures and contributes to ongoing conservation efforts.
Desmond Morris – Zoologist and author, Morris is best known for his book The Naked Ape, which looks at human behavior through the lens of animal biology. He has contributed significantly to making ethological insights accessible to the public.
Dian Fossey – Best known for her work with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, Fossey’s research brought worldwide attention to gorilla conservation. Her book Gorillas in the Mist is a cornerstone of ethological literature on primates.
Frans de Waal – A primatologist and ethologist, de Waal’s research focuses on primate social behavior, particularly the roles of empathy, cooperation, and morality in animal societies. His work has helped shape modern understanding of animal cognition.
Gareth Patterson – A South African conservationist known for his work with elephants, particularly the elusive Knysna elephants. His books, including The Secret Elephants, offer insights into elephant behavior and the importance of wildlife conservation.
Jane Goodall – Renowned for her pioneering research on wild chimpanzees in Tanzania, Goodall revealed the complexity of chimpanzee social and emotional lives. Her work revolutionized the understanding of primate behavior and is foundational in both ethology and conservation.
Konrad Lorenz – A Nobel Prize-winning ethologist, Lorenz is famous for his work on imprinting in birds. He helped establish the field of ethology, emphasizing the instinctual behaviors in animals.
Nikolaas Tinbergen – Tinbergen, another foundational figure in ethology, developed key theories about animal behavior, including the four questions framework for understanding why animals behave the way they do.
Temple Grandin – An animal behaviorist known for her work with livestock and her advocacy for the humane treatment of animals. Her insights into animal behavior have made her a prominent figure in ethology.
Ethology as Observation and Interpretation
Ethologists use mostly observational methods, systematic observation, record-keeping, interpretation. I am sure they use video and more advanced technology now. The science has advanced. I guess I would say they also use some pseudo-experimental methods. It's not a hard science, where confounds can be easily controlled for.
Ethologists’ Role in Studying Animal Communication
Ethologists have looked at commincation; something relatively simple and obvious to look at. Getting at the inner life of animals, well, I don't think any of us will ever really understand that. That's why people study behavior. That's the most apparent thing.
The Role of Interpretation in Ethology
All the data has to be interpreted, and individual scholars are going to interpret it differently. And as I have long noted (and a whole lot more who have greater credibility), there are no facts, there's only interpretations.
Reflections on Animal Consciousness
So anyways, I never give much thought to the inner life of any animal until recent years and now I'm thinking, what's it like to be a duck? What goes on in those little duck brains? I'll return to that later.
Inner life, well, I don't even know what my best friend's inner life is like for sure. I can only know about my own, but I'm making the assumption that it's not just humans that have an inner life. We're not the only conscious species.
The Influence of Nagel’s Paper
Years ago, I read a paper by Ernst Nagel on what it's like to be a bat, great paper. So that might have got me thinking, if I hadn't been thinking before. (Some uncharitable folks would argue that I never think, but that's not part of my discussion here).
Animal Consciousness and Reflection
So I've long been interested in animal behavior, but it's only been recently that I've started to reflect on animal consciousness in a serious way. Maybe did it before, but now I'm giving it more thought.
I'd never really thought about it, but it seemed to me that there was some intelligence, some perceptions. What sensations, what emotions, what thoughts do they have with their language? They have social behavior. Do they think? I believe they do. Again, we'll come to that dreaded technical term, qualia, to encompass us all, I believe that they have qualia. Simpler than ours, I guess. Non-linguistic, but I'm sure it exists.
So getting back to animal thoughts, let's call them qualia, a technical term which encompasses sensations, perception, emotions, and thought. In the case of ducks, I guess, non-linguistic thought, although they do communicate with their various quacks, which may have more subtlety than we understand. I'm not sure.
Introduction
Ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior, offers insights into the complex social and cognitive processes of non-human animals. Through the systematic observation of behaviors such as swimming, preening, and social interactions, ethologists have sought to understand how animals navigate their environments and interact with one another. Ducks, as common and familiar animals, provide an accessible case for examining broader themes in animal behavior and consciousness.
Drawing on the work of leading figures in ethology such as Jane Goodall, Konrad Lorenz, Frans de Waal, and Nikolaas Tinbergen, this essay explores both the behavioral patterns and potential inner lives of animals. Ethology focuses on observable behaviors, but it also involves interpreting these actions to uncover underlying social structures and instincts. This essay also considers the question of animal consciousness, building on Thomas Nagel’s philosophical discussion of subjective experience in non-human species. By examining the behaviors of ducks, the essay aims to illustrate the ways in which ethology bridges the gap between observable actions and the elusive realm of animal consciousness.
Observing Ducks: A Window into Ethology
Ethology, the study of animal behavior, is grounded in observation, interpretation, and occasional experimental methods. Ethologists such as Jane Goodall and Konrad Lorenz have long emphasized the importance of observing animals in their natural environments to understand their behaviors (Goodall, 1986; Lorenz, 1981). Ducks, like many other animals, exhibit a range of social behaviors, including clustering, preening, and dominance displays. These observations align with the core principles of ethology, where the focus is on systematic observation and the interpretation of behaviors, which can vary based on environmental factors and social structures (Tinbergen, 1963).
For example, when ducks congregate near the shore, their movements may seem random, but they often follow established social hierarchies. Observations of ducks swimming in clusters or engaging in minor territorial disputes reflect dominance behavior, a common aspect of many species' social structures (Lorenz, 1981). This behavior mirrors what has been observed in other animals, where competition for resources or space often leads to displays of aggression or submission.
The Role of Interpretation in Ethology
Ethology, while heavily observational, also requires interpretation. The behaviors of animals, such as ducks preening or bullying one another, must be analyzed to understand their purpose or function. Frans de Waal notes that interpretation is key to understanding social behavior, especially in species that display complex social dynamics, such as primates and birds (de Waal, 2016). However, interpretation can vary, with some researchers viewing certain behaviors as dominance-related, while others may interpret the same actions as part of social cooperation.
Ethologists record behaviors, but the challenge lies in understanding their underlying motivations. Lorenz's work on imprinting, for instance, showed that behaviors often thought to be instinctual can also involve learning and adaptation, complicating the process of interpretation (Lorenz, 1981). In the case of ducks, preening may serve a functional purpose—waterproofing their feathers—but could also have social or communicative aspects that are not immediately obvious to the casual observer.
Animal Consciousness: The Nagel Question
One of the central debates in ethology and philosophy of mind is whether animals possess consciousness and, if so, how it differs from human consciousness. Thomas Nagel’s essay, What is it Like to Be a Bat?, raised questions about the subjective experience of animals, arguing that humans can never fully understand what it is like to be another species (Nagel, 1974). This idea is relevant to ethology, where observation alone may not reveal the inner lives of animals, despite extensive documentation of their behaviors.
For instance, ducks communicate through quacking, physical displays, and social interactions, but whether these actions indicate conscious thought remains an open question. Nagel’s work highlights the limits of human understanding when interpreting animal behavior, suggesting that while behaviors can be studied and cataloged, the subjective experience of animals—what it feels like to be a duck, for example—remains elusive (Nagel, 1974).
The Contributions of Ethologists and Animal Psychologists
The foundational work of ethologists like Jane Goodall and Konrad Lorenz, alongside the contributions of animal psychologists such as Frans de Waal, has significantly expanded the understanding of animal behavior. Goodall’s long-term observations of chimpanzees demonstrated the complexity of non-human social behavior, challenging the view that only humans engage in sophisticated social interactions (Goodall, 1986). Similarly, Lorenz’s studies of birds, particularly imprinting, provided insights into how animals learn and adapt through social interactions (Lorenz, 1981).
De Waal’s research on primates has also contributed to a deeper understanding of animal cognition, empathy, and morality (de Waal, 2016). These insights have profound implications for how ethologists interpret the behaviors of other animals, including birds. Ducks, like primates, exhibit behaviors that suggest social awareness and communication, though their cognitive processes may be different in complexity and form.
Ethology’s Ongoing Challenges
Despite advances in understanding animal behavior, ethology faces ongoing challenges in interpretation and methodology. Observing ducks swimming, preening, or displaying dominance behaviors provides valuable data, but understanding the motivations behind these actions requires careful interpretation. The limitations of human perception, as highlighted by Nagel, remind researchers that much of what is observed remains speculative when it comes to animal consciousness (Nagel, 1974).
Ethologists continue to refine their methods, using technology such as video recording to capture behaviors more accurately, yet the interpretation of these recordings still depends on human judgment. As ethology progresses, it must balance the need for systematic observation with the complexities of interpreting behaviors that may have multiple meanings, depending on the context.
Summary
This essay explores the key themes of ethology and animal consciousness through the lens of duck behavior. Ethology, as established by pioneers like Jane Goodall, Konrad Lorenz, and Nikolaas Tinbergen, emphasizes the importance of systematic observation in understanding animal behavior. By observing ducks engaging in behaviors such as swimming, preening, and establishing social hierarchies, the essay highlights the methods ethologists use to interpret animal actions and the underlying instincts guiding them.
In addition to behavioral observations, the essay engages with the broader philosophical question of animal consciousness, as discussed by Thomas Nagel. Nagel’s inquiry into subjective experience, particularly in non-human species, raises important considerations for ethology. While observable behavior can be studied, the subjective experience of animals—their emotions, sensations, and cognitive processes—remains largely inaccessible to human understanding.
The contributions of ethologists like Frans de Waal, who studies social behavior and cognition in animals, further emphasize the complexity of animal minds. This essay demonstrates that while much can be learned from the observation of animal behavior, significant questions remain about the inner lives of animals, including whether and how they experience consciousness. By examining the behaviors of ducks, the essay provides a case study for exploring these larger questions within the fields of ethology and animal cognition.
Bibliography
de Waal, F. B. M. (2016). Are we smart enough to know how smart animals are? W.W. Norton & Company.
This book explores the intelligence of animals, particularly primates, and discusses the roles of empathy, cooperation, and morality in their social behaviors. It challenges human assumptions about animal cognition.
http://wwnorton.com/books/Are-We-Smart-Enough-to-Know-How-Smart-Animals-Are
Goodall, J. (1986). The chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of behavior. Harvard University Press.
This groundbreaking work provides a detailed analysis of chimpanzee social structures and behaviors, reshaping our understanding of primate emotional and social complexity.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330730313
Galdikas, B. (1995). Reflections of Eden: My years with the orangutans of Borneo. Little, Brown and Company.
This book recounts Galdikas' extensive field research on orangutans, focusing on their complex social structures and conservation efforts in Borneo.
https://www.amazon.ca/Reflections-Eden-Years-Orangutans-Borneo/dp/0316301817
Lorenz, K. (1981). The foundations of ethology. Springer-Verlag.
Lorenz’s work lays the foundation for ethology, discussing the importance of instinctual behavior in animals and his observations on imprinting, particularly in birds.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-7091-3671-3
Morris, D. (1967). The naked ape: A zoologist’s study of the human animal. Jonathan Cape.
In this popular book, Morris examines human behavior through the lens of animal biology, comparing our actions and instincts to those of other animals.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-7091-3671-3
Nagel, T. (1974). What is it like to be a bat? The Philosophical Review, 83(4), 435-450.
This philosophical essay explores the concept of subjective experience in animals, arguing that humans cannot fully grasp what it is like to experience the world as a non-human animal.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2183914
Fossey, D. (1983). Gorillas in the mist. Houghton Mifflin.
Dian Fossey’s classic account of her field research with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, highlighting their behavior and the importance of conservation efforts.
https://www.amazon.ca/Gorillas-Mist-Dian-Fossey-1983-08-25/dp/B01FIX5ZQC
Patterson, G. (2009). The secret elephants. Macmillan.
Patterson's work focuses on the elusive Knysna elephants, offering insights into elephant behavior and highlighting the conservation challenges in South Africa.
https://www.amazon.ca/Secret-Elephants-Gareth-Patterson-ebook/dp/B06XDNSYC7
Tinbergen, N. (1963). On aims and methods of ethology. Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20(4), 410-433.
Tinbergen’s article outlines the fundamental questions ethologists must address when studying animal behavior, contributing a framework still used in contemporary ethology.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1963.tb01161.x
Grandin, T. (1995). Thinking in pictures: My life with autism. Vintage Books.
Grandin’s memoir discusses her experience with autism and her unique insights into animal behavior, particularly in livestock, offering a humane approach to animal treatment.
https://www.amazon.ca/Thinking-Pictures-Other-Reports-Autism/dp/0679772898
Ducks have filters in their beaks known as lamellae. These are comb-like structures that help them filter out food from water, mud, and debris. When a duck dips its beak into the water or mud, it closes its beak slightly, allowing water to pass through the lamellae while trapping small plants, insects, and other food sources inside. This adaptation is especially useful for dabbling ducks, which feed by skimming the surface of the water or sifting through shallow areas.