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>>Now, to change the topic, can ducks count?

Think about it - a mother duck knows if one of her ducklings is missing, and gets upset.

So, it is possible, the mother duck counts 1 ... n-1, and comes up short.

But it is also possible, the mother duck has created an unordered set in her head, and notices that an element of the set is missing - the ducklings she sees do not include the element of her set, “Bob”.

This is fascinating stuff.

Having thought of that, it occured to me that ducks do math.

They recognize “<” - it is smaller than me, I shall eat it.

Also, “>” - It is bigger than me, I shall flee, lest it eat me.

Also, congruent - “another female duck, go away”

And, similar - “Hey, a MALE duck!”

Come to think of it, ducks are more sophisticated in math that a lot of people.<<

Interesting idea but I think you are using the wrong model. rather than putting it into the Counting Domain, thinkof it as a Set Domain.

Mama Duck has n chicks. In her mind she establishes a pattern — set (A) -— which contains n objects. The actual “count” doesn’t matter — it is a template. When she is ready to move, she mentally establishes a “current” set (B) which contains all visible matches to what she perceives as “chicks.”

In establishing to her satisfaction that all chicks are present and accounted for, she matches (A) to (B), probably through instinctive relational subtraction. If (A) == (B), she is happy and off she goes to cross the highway and get run over. Should (A) ~= (B), then she begins to search, instantiating new elements to (B) until she gets the pattern match [(A) == (B)] or her instinct makes her leave, at which point she establishes a new template set (A).