I spend a fair bit of time surfing and flicking through various Bird Fora/Forums, and it’s striking how many queries there are from birders who’ve been completely stumped by finding an odd duck on their local pond that doesn’t seem to resemble anything in their bird books.

We’ve all been there, no doubt. One day we’re happily identifying our local wildfowl, when all of a sudden we’re confronted with an alarmingly-coloured oddity that looks vaguely familiar but still, despite the nagging doubts that your more rational self insists on sending, sets those adrenalin-fuelled ‘RARITY’ alarm-bells a-ringing. On almost every occasion though the nagging doubts were right - and your new life-bird turns out to be some sort of Mallard with its mitochondrial make-up so mixed that it would take a team of nimble-fingered geneticists months to make sense of it.

In the interests in providing a public service (so typical of us generous souls here at 10000 Birds) I’m posting a gallery of what I’m rather disrespectfully calling “Manky Mallards” so that hopefully - given time to build up the photos in the collection - on the next occasion I (or anyone else for that matter) get asked to identify an odd duck that clearly doesn’t fit the image in any available field-guide I can point the luckless finder in the right direction (that’s to this page, of course)…

I do get around the world a fair bit, but there’s no way I can visit every pond that has one of these oddities “gracing” it, so I’m asking/inviting anyone with photos of ‘mallard mongrels’ or ‘domestic duck disgraces’ - which is a little unfair really, as Nature sometimes feeds the genes into her great mixer and something quite beautiful pops out the other end - to mail them to me and I’ll add them to the page (with any and all links and credits asked for of course).

Wild Mallards - perfectly beautiful…

Mallards Anas platyryhnchos, literally meaning ‘flat-billed duck’ and derived from the Greek words platys meaning “broad or flat,” and rhynchos meaning “beak” (which is pretty uninspired as most ducks except scoters Melanitta and sawbills Mergus have beaks that are essentially flat), are familiar, widespread and very common: they’re so ‘everyday’ in fact that I would guess most of us birders hardly bother to look at them anymore…

They are though beautifully and intricately plumaged, and when winter sunlight hits the male’s irridiscent green head feathers Mallards really do become quite spectacular-looking birds. (One of the most evocative descriptions of them comes from Audubon, who wrote “Now another is before you, on the margin of that purling streamlet. How brisk are all his motions compared with those of his brethren that waddle across your poultry-yard! how much more graceful in form and neat in apparel! The Duck at home is the descendant of a race of slaves, and has lost his native spirit: his wings have been so little used that they can hardly raise him from the ground. But the free-born, the untamed Duck of the swamps,–see how he springs on wing, and hies away over the woods.” www.abirdshome.com/Audubon/VolVI/00649.html. Oh, yes, the man could turn a phrase!)

Anway, just to remind ourselves what we’re dealing with here are some photos of “pure” or wild Mallards taken in the typically urban locations where most of us see - or more likely ignore - them:

Drake Mallard - New York March 2004 - a perfect bird. Photos © Charlie Moores

Duck Mallard - Vancouver, February 2006 - perfect again. Photos © Charlie Moores

Duck Mallard - New York March 2004 - (and again) perfect. Photo © Charlie Moores

Domestic breeds, or wild Mallards crossed with “domestic birds”:

Domestic Mallard breeds - ie Mallards selectively bred with other Mallards and kept by man for eg food - are not illustrated in any field guide I’ve ever looked in (someone should get round to them at some point - how about it Mr Sibley?), and birders often seem to forget that domestic breeds exist and have bred - perhaps either after escaping or being deliberately released - with wild birds for many, many years. No longer confined to collections, farms or village ponds, the resulting birds are free-flying (most true ‘domestic ducks’ in sensu stricto don’t fly), are often large and aggressive, and are paddling about on ponds and lakes all over the world.

A wild, pure drake Mallard (rear) and “Not Quite Pure” drake Mallard - Chew Valley, UK. Photo © Charlie Moores

 

Three very mixed “domestic Mallards” - southern California, 2003.
Photo © Mike Bergin

 

A “manky” group of “domestic Mallards” - Bangalore, India, 2007.
Photo © Charlie Moores

 

A “manky” group of “domestic Mallards” dressed up for a night out? - Westport, CT, 2008.
Photo © Ann Blystone (read the post this photo came from at The Tombstone Chronicler)

These “odd” ducks definitely do create many identification problems (even experienced birders get thrown sometimes, as I’m not ashamed to admit), but many drakes (ie males) in particular have an obvious Mallard “heritage”. Some - though by no means ALL - have the green-yellow bills typical of their wild and distant ancestors, for example, and some also retain the curly black uppertail covert feathers (the little ‘curls’ near the tail) diagnostic of the species as well (as in the photos below).

Male feral Mallard - central Tennessee, March 2007. Photo © Alice (10,000 Monkeys and a Camera)

 

Male feral Mallards - California, Feb 2007. Photo © Jack Cole

 

Feral Mallard - New York, April 2007. Photo © Charlie Moores

 

Feral Mallards - Isle of Wight, UK, June 2007. Photo © Vectis Birder

Others are just downright peculiar and seem to have no plumage features that link them back to wild Mallards at all, but if you do happen to find a strangely plumaged duck that defies initial identification there are three things worth bearing in mind:

• An ‘odd’, unrecognisable duck swimming around an urban pond with ‘wild’ Mallards, waddling around on the grass in a park, or coming to take bread from your toddler’s outstretched hand, is very unlikely to be a vagrant species or a rarity - it’s most probably a domestic duck, ie a “Manky Mallard”.
• If you find a duck that is “Mallard-like” but seems too large or proportionately ‘not quite right’ it is probably - again - a domestic Mallard: many domestic breeds were developed for eating, and have been selected over generations to be larger, heavier, and ‘more meaty’ than wild Mallards.
• If your duck looks very like a Mallard but is ‘too pale’ and/or has large patches of white, it’s also very likely to be a “domestic”, or a wild x domestic, Mallard - particularly if those patches are asymmetric or appear randomly scattered, as is the case with the female in the photo below.

Female domestic Mallard - California, Feb 2007. Photo © Jack Cole

Wild duck species can show white feathers of course because of varying degrees of albinism, but they will still have the shape and habits of the wild species, and are usually recognisable as such on a second look.

All-white breeds of domestic duck - often with large, all-orange beaks - are common, and feral are usually derived from the well-known “Aylesbury” or the “Pekin Duck” - the breed commonly kept, for instance, across Asia for eating.

Two “domestic Mallards” with American Wigeons - California, November 2006. Photo © Jack Cole

Two “domestic Mallards” - California, Feb 2007. Photo © Jack Cole

(An interesting - if complex - discussion on the dominant/recessive genes responsible for the wide range of plumage colours found in domestic Mallards can be found at http://marsa_sellers.tripod.com/geneticspages/page6.html)

A further complication in the “what duck is that?” problem comes in the form of a small, round-headed breed known as a “Call Duck”. In German, the Call Duck is known by the title ‘zwerg’, meaning ‘dwarf’, and the Dutch also consider it to be a dwarf form. Dutch Call ducks were in Britain by the 1850s, and there are now a number of “standard” forms that vary in plumage - including the White, Grey, Apricot, Blue Fawn, Magpie, and Bibbed - though all are short, compact ducks with notably stubby bills.

Originally known as Coy ducks or decoy ducks (from the Dutch word de kooi meaning ‘trap’) call ducks may have originated in the Far East and were once widely used to catch wildfowl at wetland sites. The tame “call” ducks were fed at the entrance to wickerwork decoys constructed in the form of a ‘pipe’ and wild birds were enticed down by the quacking (’calling’) of the tame birds, then caught and slaughtered for the commercial market. (For more information on these strange little breeds have a look at the interesting website of the Call Duck Association UK.)

Male “Bibbed” Call Duck - Mass, USA.
Photo © Andy Wilson (visit Andy’s blog at Thru Andy’s Lens)

Female “Apricot-type” Call Duck - Jarrow, UK.
Photo © “Pig Sty Avenue” (visit PSA’s blog at Pig Sty Avenue’)

One last element in the whole Mallard-ID conundrum comes around every year in mid- to late-summer. Not content with being difficult to ID under normal circumstances, our “manky mallards” - like their wild counterparts - make matters a whole lot harder by dropping their flight feathers and moulting. Colours disappear, plumage features are sloughed off and left floating in the shallows, and our peculiar but just recognisable duck turns into something that resembles the avian equivalent of a pile of clothes left in the corner of a bedroom (somewhere in there are your favourite jeans, but where do you start looking, and wouldn’t it be easier just to find a smart, clean pair in your wardrobe?).

There are far too many variations of “moulting manky” for this page to deal with - even us birders have lives we want to get on with - but as a demonstration that shows just how tatty a moulting duck can look how about this mallard I photographed near Tokyo in July 2007…

Moulting “manky” Mallard. Narita, Chiba, Japan. July 2007
Photo © Charlie Moores

‘Manky’ Mallards - the photos:

The following photos - surprisingly in some cases - are all of birds that are genetically 100% Mallard (and are therefore not Mallard hybrids - which are Mallards crossed with another duck species).

Many of them don’t look much like the birds most of us tend to think of as Mallards at all, but that’s what they all are (at least in the same way that a dalmatian and a spaniel have the same ancestor and are both ‘dogs’). A number of highly recognisable, standardised breeds have been selectively and carefully developed over the years - including Aylesburys, ‘crested ducks’, Indian Runners, Rouens, and Swedish etc - and it’s the genes for these breeds that the birds below will contain. There could be some genetically ‘pure’ birds here - ie containing just the genes that define one particular breed - but these ‘pure’ birds tend to be in collections or are privately held, and many of the feral ducks that birders stumble across in the wild are generations removed from the ’standard-type’ making certain identification all but impossible (hence my use of the modifier “-type” in the captions accompanying the photos).

Whilst most - if not all - of these birds could be the equivalent of putting bits of mallard DNA in a cocktail shaker and seeing what results I’ve done my best to point towards the heritages of these birds using the excellent online breakdown of the breeds of domestic Mallards at two very useful websites - www.feathersite.com and at www.omlet.co.uk - but I’ve a feeling this is a bit like claiming I understand Egyptian heiroglyphics because I’ve watched a couple of Indiana Jones movies, so feel free to mail in and correct me whenever you feel like it…

A common pitfall - the Mucovy Duck:

Few ducks seem to get new-ish birders reaching for their field guides quicker than the Muscovy Duck Cairina moschata. An unlikely-looking collection of red warts and tatty greenish-glossed feathers, the domestic form of what was actually quite a striking species turns up all over the planet sowing confusion and head-scratching wherever it arrives. Native to Mexico, Muscovys (also known in aviculturalist circles as the Barbary Duck) are large and pretty much fearless and readily hybridise with other ducks. Note in the four images below the increasing amount of white: domestic birds are incredibly variable, and there’s really no such thing as a “typical” form.

Domestic Muscovy Duck - Maine, July 2008.
Photo © Tammy Allen

Domestic Muscovy Duck - Seekonk, MA , March 2007.
Photo © Christine Hochkeppel

 

“Curly-haired” domestic Muscovy Duck - UK, June 2008.
Photo © Charlie Moores

 

White domestic Muscovy Duck (or perhaps Muscovy x Pekin Duck hybrid) - Bronx, NY , August 2007.
Photo © Stephanie Clarke

NB: If you can’t find a photo that looks like your “odd” Mallard here, why not try the page of hybrid Mallard photos which are at Hybrid Mallards?

This page has very much become a group effort over the years, so thanks very much to the following for permission to use their photographs on this page and/or on our Mallard hybrids page:

• Tammy Allen
• ‘Alice’: Visit Alice’s blog at 10,000 Monkeys and a Camera
• Mike Bergin
• Ann Blystone: Visit Ann’s bog at The Tombstone Chronicler
• Mark Brown
• Martin Cade: Warden of Portland Bird Observatory.
• Stephanie Clarke
• Bruce and Joanne Clayton. Visit Bruce and Joanne’s website at Butterfly on My Shoulder Photography.
• Joe Cockram: Visit Joe’s blog at www.joesbirding.blogspot.com.
• Jack Cole: No website, no blog - just a very good friend of mine
• Lesley Dalladay
• Leslie Doepke
• Adam Eibling
• Christa Eickert
• Corey Finger
• Jyri Heino: Excellent Finnish photographer with many images on Tarsiger.com
• Christine Hochkeppel
• Blake and Dan Hudson
• Andreas Kim: Wildlife and general photographs from Korea - Andreas Kim’s Photography
• David Leedham: Visit Leedham.com
• Joern Lehmhus
• “Pig Sty Avenue”: Visit PSA’s blog at Pig Sty Avenue
• Jochen Roeder: Visit Jochen’s blog at Bell Tower Birding
• Bill Schmoker: Excellent wildlife photographs, including some other hybrid species - http://www.schmoker.org
• Bob Steele: Professional bird photographer - Bob Steele Photography
• ‘Vectis Birder’: Visit the Vectis Birder blog.
• Andy Wilson: Visit Andy’s blog at Thru Andy’s Lens

Also check out these “manky mallard” or mallard hybrid pages:

• www.ashtonwaterfowl.net
• Patrick Höhener: Photographs of water fowl hybrids
• Kevin McGowan: Confusing Domestic Ducks
• Harry Lehto: Mallards - Copenhagen
• LiveDucks.com/breeds

Do you have any photos of unusual ‘Mallard-type’ ducks you’d be kind enough to let me post?
Please email me with them (to charlie10000birds - AT - gmail.com, the larger the file size the better) saying where and when they were taken and any links/credits etc you’d like. Many thanks.