Animals: Canvas at Fallodon

To most U. S. citizens the name of Edward Grey, 1st Viscount Grey of Fallodon, is known as that of the longtime (1905-16) British Foreign Secretary who reluctantly but vigorously led his country into the World War. Rhodes Scholars know that he is Chancellor of Oxford University. Sportsmen and naturalists may have heard that he is an ardent fisherman and a lover of wild life, but few are aware of the extent to which he has carried this passion, of the work and patience the weak-eyed old gentleman (he is 70) has expended to tame wild fowl to the point where he could learn facts about them which naturalists have been able only to surmise. In the September-October issue of Natural History, published this week, Lord Grey reveals many facts unknown to U. S. sportsmen & naturalists concerning the love-life of a distinguished native of North America, the canvasback duck (Nyroca valisineria).

At Fallodon, near the Scottish border, Lord Grey has established two duck sanctuaries, in & about two small ponds surrounded by high fox-proof fences. There he feeds his ducks twice a day, many of them eating from his hand. All are wild ducks, free to come & go as they please, but at Fallodon they have become tame. There are some 200 ducks of 20-odd species. Says Frank Michler Chapman, curator of birds at the American Museum of Natural History, in an introduction to Lord Grey’s article:

“I know of no place where closer relations have been established between birds & man than at Fallodon. … I think that St. Francis would have felt at home there.”

In 1929 Lord Grey got a pair of canvasbacks, duck & drake, from two breeders who had raised them from U. S. eggs. They were pinioned and tame. For six months the birds showed no attachment for each other, then the duck began sitting on five eggs. Five young ducks were hatched, four lived to maturity. They were very shy, would not feed while any human was near. For five weeks Lord Grey tried to tame them. “Late on summer evenings when I could get the canvasbacks by themselves I knelt, leaning over the edge of the bank, throwing small pieces of bread. … In this way, evening by evening, I drew them nearer till at length in the dusk one evening a young canvasback snatched a piece of bread from my fingers. Then the frost of suspicion and fear began to thaw. I continued my coaxing and in a few days three of the four young canvasbacks would come to me for food. The fourth could never be induced to feed from the hand.”

The four young ducks remained at Fallodon through the migration months of October & November. In December the canvasbacks’ pond froze, leaving a small piece of open water in which the ducks were marooned. Lord Grey “threw bread and corn on the ice, but the birds did not seem to understand the ice and would not come out on to it and I could not go to them because the ice would not bear me. On the morning of December 10 all the young canvasbacks were gone.” Six days later one returned. It remained until the next summer, then left. One of the others returned after nine months, one after 17 months. All became tame as soon as they returned, although they had lived in a wild state while away. Next year the old duck reared one young drake; this year she reared seven ducks & drakes. All grew up at Fallodon, soon learned to eat from Lord Grey’s hand. He thinks they will leave and return from time to time. He writes:

“My observation leads me to suppose that there is little attachment between the male & female canvasback. They do not goin a pair or take notice of each other except in the breeding season. . . . The duck is a good mother, showing sense and care when the young are hatched. The drake takes no notice of the young. . . . The drakes become more tame than the ducks. . . . My old duck canvasback often utters a small sound that makes her presence known, but the drake is silent except in the breeding season. … It may be that if my old drake had the company of others of his sex he would be less silent. . . . Young canvasbacks, left free, will, unless unsettled by ice, remain where they have been reared until the following spring, but will then leave. . . . The young are very strong and healthy birds from the moment of hatching.”