Peggi,

About your observation that after copulation on land ducks will literally run
to water to wash. I presume you mean some sort of dabbling duck as in a
Mallard for instance? And I further assume the one doing the running is the
hen?

If you observe copulation on water ("normal" for dabbling ducks) you will
notice that after dismounting the drake will perform nod-swimming, he puts his
chin on the water (neck oustretched) and swims a circle (or near complete
circle) around the hen. Meantime the hen has started bathing (briefly) ending
with rearing up and wing-flapping.

All this behavior, including the many steps leading up to copulation are so
predictable (barring intrusion/disturbance of the pair) that I like to
astonish non-initiated birders by describing each action a split-second before
it happens.

Always a good introduction to bird behavior as an added dimension to bird
identification (no judgement).

Hope this helps. I'm on digest mode, so if someone already gave you this
information I apologize for duplicating it.

Martin Muller, Seattle
martinmuller at msn.com