duck fight!

Somewhere I went wrong yesterday in my assessment of the ducks.  Guess they were up for one last hurrah, of sorts.

There was one female that I thought was a single. But I watched as she went first with one other male, then went over to Blue Eyes. (she's still with him today so I assume it is his original mate) One of the new arrivals, I think I mentioned he had a lot of battle scars, then went towards the female.

Blue Eyes went immediately on the attack.

I wish I could identify each female duck, but they are a little tougher to differentiate some times.  Was this really BE's mate? Or was a this a second go around? 
I just looked out and they are at it again. Only two females remain the rest have been gone for at least two days.

One thing that I observe is that the females never get upset by the fighting. They go about their business and appear unconcerned that there's a life and death struggle, often just inches from them! 

You can see how they use every part of their body in a fight, including their tail.

The first half of the video doesn't have sound, it was taken inside. The second part I was outside and much closer. They were oblivious to my presence.

I think he was even giving me the evil eye!

Here she is ready to take off (and he will follow)

They go through quite a range of gyrations before taking off that still photos can't show. Here she has her head & neck stretched high. They do a lot of head bobbing right before taking flight also. Which is funny looking when there's a group getting ready to take off together.

 just before take off she hunkers down.

 and we have lift off

With all they go through, it's then amazing to see them take off in when afraid or startled.   Mallards are not graceful, nor careful  More then once I feared being smacked in the head by a duck taking off in the yard.  I see them often crashing into big tree branches on take off.  But they are sturdy little creatures and this doesn't seem to cause them too much harm.