Abstract
In general, wintering dabbling ducks rest in the safety lakes and ponds during daytime hours and feed at shallow areas, such as flooded rice fields, during nighttime hours. Since it is difficult to observe Mallards Anas platyrhynchos during nighttime, I set a time-lapse camera with an infrared flash at the rice fields to study the time budget activities of Mallards. A time-lapse camera was set from December 15, 2019, to January 20, 2020, at the rice field near Katano-kamoike pond where is the Ramser site in Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, central Japan. Photos were taken every 5 min from 17:00 to 07:00. The dabbling duck species photographed during the study period included Mallards, Spot-billed ducks A. zonorhyncha, Baikal teal A. formosa, and with the later two species were uncommon. The activities of Mallards were classified into eight categories: foraging, sleeping, preening, alert, agonistic activity, flying, courtship, and others. I counted the number of photographed Mallards in each category in each photo. During the study period, foraging occupied 20%–70% of the time budget and was the most frequent activity through the night. Mallards also allocated time to resting and preening, which are required to maintain their body condition. However, courtship was not recorded. These results reveal the importance of flooded rice fields as wintering habitats for Mallards and show how conservation strategies adopted around Katano-kamoike pond are effective for the conservation of dabbling ducks.
