u/Impressive_Yak3949

Hi, I am new to this subreddit and hope this is the right place to ask a question about animal behavior.

I have observed a strange phenomenon in the garden surrounding our apartment. There is a small pond that houses about six ducks (typical city ducks in various colors) with an unbalanced male-to-female ratio (only one female). We have a large lawn in front of our apartment where the ducks often stay.

Last year, we noticed a male Mandarin duck joined the group. He didn’t seem fully accepted, disappeared for a while, but eventually came back to stay. He was with the group but always seemed to keep some distance. He became very fond of the female duck though, followed her around peacefully, and seemed to guard her from the other males. We thought we might be projecting our human ideas onto the animals.
Every spring, all chaos erupts as the males aggressively try to mate with that one female duck. It’s hard to watch. This year, she had ducklings, and we noticed that the little mandarin duck was actively defending her and confronting the other males, leading to big fights, with plumes flying everywhere. He’s small but fierce!
I read that Mandarins and regular ducks can’t breed together, so I assume these weren’t his ducklings. I’ve also never heard of male ducks caring for or defending ducklings.
Unfortunately, all the ducklings have now disappeared, so I guess they died. Peace has mostly returned to the duck pond.

I’m curious about what’s really going on here. Are there any biologists who could help me understand the behavior of the Mandarin duck?