Liberty Valance and Jeanie Curtis write:
"We've looked in every book we have and can not identify this dark headed Duck. Can you?" (Thanks, Liberty and Jeanie!)
Tuesday Teaser 030513
Liberty Valance and Jeanie Curtis write:
Liberty Valance and Jeanie Curtis write:
I’m going to say a female Mallard. All the ducks look like they are a form of domestic Mallard, and that strange one is just a female. Toward the top of the duck, you can still make out some of the female Mallard markings. Or they could be hybrids, or have a genetic mutation, or…
was something done with the color of the picture? The back birds all look like some for of mallard. The bill looks blue on the female bird, possibly a female pintail?
These are Mallards of domestic origin. They’re clearly mongrels, but the breed they approach most closely in appearance is called Khaki Campbell, a heavy, beautiful bird greatly valued for its egg production. Even odd-plumaged Mallards like this can be sexed by the shape of the upper tail coverts: flat in females, curled in males.
If Liberty and Jeanie send me their e-mail address, I can send them a copy of my Birder’s Guide to the Domestic Mallard, a little book project that is languishing on my desktop while I work on more important things.
More important than this?
Hello….
(Thanks, Rick!)
The one at the bottom looks like what I’d expect a Mallard/Gadwall or Mallard/BW teal hybrid to look like. The others look like eclipse or domestic mallards.
Yep, they are Khaki Campbells. They’re domestic “pet ducks” that were thrown away. They’re meat/egg birds.
mallard X
As first poster said, these are domestic mallards.