Bryan et al - I suspect a lot of dabblers will swim underwater, and
have seen it. Years ago, while walking in a shallow creek, I came
across a brood of various aged Mallards. While female wing-flapped
away, the older chick [third the size of adult] dived and swam away
underwater, parallel to creek bank and into some tules, while several
slightly younger ones scuttled into weeds at the shore. I'd once seen
a freshly fledged Spotted Sandpiper attempt this maneuver [as have
killdeer], totally wetting itself from underwater [and surface] swim
- it was a cold morning so I caught it, warmed and dried it, then
placed it onto sunny weed-covered ground to let it hide - adult did
not like me that day! Last fall, I watched a female mallard dive more
than 2 dozen times to avoid being "hit" by a swooping Bald Eagle,
until she had worked her way 50 yards or so to the safety of some
logs and other obstructions among a flock of Canada geese... Seems
like she ought to have tried to fly, but she may have been injured by
the eagle and was just doing whatever it took to survive... no
follow-up, but the eagle gave up and flew away, after the 5 minutes
part of chase I watched... - Jim Greaves, MT

At 01:04 PM 4/14/2010, tweeters-request at mailman2.u.washington.edu wrote:
>Subject: [Tweeters] diving mallard
>To: Tweeters at u.washington.edu
>Message-ID: <942142.37585.qm at web53406.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>Hello,
>For the first time ever this afternoon I was watching a Mallard hen
>diving for whatever in the duck pond at Pt. Defiance. I've seen them
>go under water before while bathing but just for a few seconds. This
>duck was pushing herself under and while keeping her body angled
>down she was propelling herself with het feet, not swimming with
>wings like I've seen other species do at Titlow and the Pt. Defiance
>boathouse. She would come up with something I couldn't identify. She
>was near shore and visible underwater most of the time.[snipped]
>Bryan O.
>Tacoma Wa.
>obryan214 at yahoo.com