I found about this from a friend last night in the typical perverted mallard sex practices conversation one often overhears at New York art openings. Frankly, I figured she was making this up, especially when she casually mentioned that the scientist studying these little miscreants, Kees Moeliker, won the Nobel peace prize for biology.
He describes hearing a thud outside his office, which was a specific genus of mallard doing a nose dive right into his window (one of those tragicomedy realities of civilization throwing curveballs at nature). When he went to survey the damage, he noticed another mallard casing out his dead counterpart:
The unfortunate duck apparently had hit the building in full flight at a height of about three metres from the ground. Next to the obviously dead duck, another male mallard (in full adult plumage without any visible traces of moult) was present. He forcibly picked into the back, the base of the bill and mostly into the back of the head of the dead mallard for about two minutes, then mounted the corpse and started to copulate, with great force, almost continuously picking the side of the head.Apparently, this particular Sting-esque mallard practices tantric necrophilia, as he made sweet duck love for (and I shit you not) over SEVENTY FIVE minutes.
My big question last night - was this ever repeated? And it seems the answer is no. I haven't looked closely yet, but I'm a little unclear what it is about one case of a psycho sexual duck that warrants receiving a Nobel peace prize. Then again, it seems they'll give those things to anyone these days. Here's Donald reenacting the scene:
