Mallard (Anas Platyrhynchos)

Photos by BarrytheBirder

Male Mallards

(note damaged wing)

The Mallard Duck is the most recognizable duck in Canada and the United States.   It is extremely common and widespread in the wild, and the ancestor of many domestic ducks.   It is the largest dabbling duck; a bird of many shallow-water environments, they are found in marshes, ponds, streams and city parks.   They feed at the surface or by 'tipping up' to reach shallow pond bottoms.   Like other 'dabblers' they spring directly into the air from water surfaces.

They range and breed from Alaska, Quebec and central New England to southern California, Arizona, Texas, central Illinois and coastal Virginia.   They winter north to the southern Great Lakes region, New England, the Dakotas and British Columbia.

Males have easily recognizable whole green heads, with yellow bills, full chestnut breasts, Gray backs and sides, black rumps and pale tails.

Female

Females are sandy brown and streaked. They have mottled orange and brown bills and have very pale, whitish tails (as do males).   The usual call of the female is quack, quack, quack, quack, diminishing in volume and speed, whereas the male's call is softer and reedier.   Males and females both have white underwings.

Please comment if you wish.

Barry the Birder