Sunday Tina Blade and I visited Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
for several hours in the afternoon. We watched some very frisky
Mallards splashing around the main pond and wondered what the story
was: is this courtship, grooming, just plain fun, or what?

Here's a link to a short video of the behavior:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSIrN7SzScI&hd=1

You can hear hunters shooting in the background, but really I could
find no reason to suspect the birds were being startled.

Marc Hoffman
Kirkland, WA
http://www.dartfrogmedia.com/photography
mailto: tweeters at dartfrogmedia dot com