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# A Lucky Duck Is Nesting on the Metropolitan Museum Roof
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/a-duck-is-hanging-out-on-the-met-museum-roof/
- Published: 2020-07-30T11:00:32.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:22:27.000Z
- Description: The museum is asking for help naming the newly arrived duck on Instagram, encouraging art-related suggestions.
- Author: Valentina Di Liscia
- Tags: News, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:41 (2019, 2020, part 2)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/screen-shot-2020-07-29-at-4-53-12-pm.png)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City may be closed for the time being, but that hasn’t stopped one feathered visitor from stopping by. Last week, the museum [reported](https://www.instagram.com/p/CDB3hhylj%5FY/?ref=hyperallergic.com) that a brown duck has built her nest in a planter on its Cantor Rooftop Garden.

Museum staff have enlisted the help of NYC Parks’s Urban Park Rangers to assist in transporting the to-be mom and her ducklings to the Central Park Pond when they’ve hatched. In the meantime, the Met has launched an [open call for name suggestions on Instagram,](https://www.instagram.com/p/CDB3hhylj%5FY/?ref=hyperallergic.com) asking users to submit their “most egg-cellent” ideas in the comments.” (The museum is especially eager to hear art-themed monickers.)

Some of the best so far: Leonora Quackington, after Mexican artist Leonora Carrington; La Duckonde, riffing on Leonardo’s “La Giaconda”; and Joseph “Mallard” William Turner, a pun on the British landscape painter’s middle name, Mallord.

The exquisitely-plumaged duck’s choice of such a high-end nesting spot is a testament to her sophisticated taste: the Met roof is renowned for its annual commissions of works by prominent contemporary artists, including [Alicja Kwade](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2019/alicja-kwade-parapivot?ref=hyperallergic.com) and [Huma Bhabha](https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/huma-bhabha?ref=hyperallergic.com).

However, this glamorous bird is far from the first of her kind to cause a stir in New York. A multicolored Mandarin Duck spotted in the Central Park Pond in 2018 was baptized “[Hot Duck](https://www.thecut.com/2018/11/everyone-loves-the-hot-duck.html?ref=hyperallergic.com)” by the fashion magazine The Cut. The [Manhattan Bird Alert](https://twitter.com/BirdCentralPark/status/1050212074134089728?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1050212074134089728%7Ctwgr%5E&ref%5Furl=https%3A%2F%2Fpatch.com%2Fnew-york%2Fupper-east-side-nyc%2Frare-mandarin-duck-wows-central-park-reporthttps://twitter.com/BirdCentralPark/status/1050212074134089728?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1050212074134089728%7Ctwgr%5E&ref%5Furl=https%3A%2F%2Fpatch.com%2Fnew-york%2Fupper-east-side-nyc%2Frare-mandarin-duck-wows-central-park-report&ref=hyperallergic.com), which is basically the ornithology society pages, affirmed that Hot Duck had “unseated the Wood Duck as prettiest duck in the park.” 

Although the newly-arrived mallard is unlikely to remain at the museum through its [intended reopening date on August 29](https://hyperallergic.com/metropolitan-museum-confirms-late-august-reopening-with-limited-hours/) — duck eggs usually take 28 days to hatch — it is safe to say that birdwatchers and art lovers alike will be eagerly refreshing the Met’s Instagram for updates. (Or maybe that’s just me.)