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We here at 10,000 Birds believe that every bird is beautiful and, moreover, that every part of every bird is beautiful. Even we, however, tend not to stare too long or too hard at the nether regions of ducks dabbling for dinner.  We understand that some of our readers really, really like duck butts though, [...]

Mallards can be dirty ducks.  Very, very, dirty ducks.  And while ducks in general are known for their hybridizing ways, none are as prolific and undiscriminating as Anas platyrhynchos.  The list of species that Mallards are known to have hybridized with is long and in some cases Mallard genes threaten to flood the gene pool [...]

Years ago, Charlie Moores coined the colorful term “manky mallard” to describe the motley menagerie of feral and domestic mallards (If you’re wondering, manky means many things in British parlance from dirty and disgusting to inferior and worthless.) Here at 10,000 Birds, we’ve always celebrated odd ducks, which means manky mallards feel right at home! How varied are [...]

Everyone knows what a male Mallard looks like. The drake of this extremely common, sexually dimorphic species (Anas platyrhynchos) cuts a fine form with his iridescent emerald dome and chestnut breast. A female mallard possesses plumage as dull as her partner’s is bold, a frock of forgettable grays, browns, and blacks. Yet you would be wise [...]

Winter at Point Lookout, the easternmost point of land on the south shore of Long Island, New York, before one reaches Jones Inlet, can provide wildlife watchers with a plethora of pleasing options.  One of my favorites species to see at Point Lookout since the first time I saw them there has been the gaudy [...]

According to my Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, the Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula) is “fairly common” but the Barrow’s Goldeneye (Bucephala islandica) is “scarce.” They also list the third member of the genus Bucephala, the Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola), as “common.” I find this categorization to be pretty accurate, so whenever I see [...]

In North America there is really only one duck that could even come close to competing with the Wood Duck for the title of most fair, and the Harlequin Duck is just too much of a trollop to really compete.  Wood Ducks are essentially in a class of their own and seeing a drake in [...]

As we roll towards Valentine’s Day, the U.S. as a whole is desperate for signs of spring. Montana is no excpetion. Just this week, Missoula was carpeted with more than 9 inches of snow in one 24-hour span, yet on the list-servs and in conversation the hot topics are the smallest hints of migration and [...]

I live in New York, and I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, down near Central Park South.  I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go.  I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy [...]

Back in 2007 when I was doing my New York State big year I dipped on a Tufted Duck way up in the northeasternmost part of the state when Jory, Will, and I couldn’t find the bird on Lake Champlain.  Perhaps the same Tufted Duck was on Lake Champlain again last winter but with a [...]

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had planned writing a post about ducks, and in the last week, I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to go about writing it. One could easily start by breaking them out along genus – like Anas, Aythya, etc, and discussing the difference between dabbling and diving [...]

The North Carolina birding community (and South Carolina too) has been hopping with the report of a White-cheeked Pintail, one of the more sharp-looking representatives of a particularly sharp-looking family of birds, at a wildlife refuge on the Outer Banks.  But the bird’s striking visage is hardly the only reason the local birdery’s interest was [...]

When one is grocery shopping with the family on a Saturday afternoon and the phone rings, and it is a birder, odds are a rarity has been discovered. This happened to me yesterday and, well, the rarity was not only an impressive bird but it was in Queens, at Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. As Daisy [...]

The Black Scoter Melanitta americana, called the American Scoter by some and Melanitta nigra by others*, is a large seaduck rather readily identified by the large, shockingly-bright-yellow knob on the male’s bill that stands out amazingly well against the all-black plumage that gives the bird its common name.  The female is dressed in more muted [...]

Fitting in an outing to see some birds has gotten exponentially more difficult now that I am back at work.  Spending time with Desmond and Daisy (don’t get me wrong, I love it!), putting the nose to the grindstone forty hours per week (which I love a bit less), and the fact that though the [...]

Yesterday, Sunday, three days before I was scheduled to be a dad (still not yet!) I was out and about in Nassau County with five other birders on the Queens County Bird Club‘s “South Shore Potpourri” trip, a yearly search for waterfowl both rare and common in the assorted small parks and ponds that are [...]

One of my favorite ducks is the Northern Shoveler (Anas clypeata). Something about their namesake, absurdly long, shovel-like bills, elegant plumage, and cool vocalizations make me want to see them on every birding excursion. Or maybe it is their clever methods of eating, whether straining the water with their bills or swimming in circles in [...]

Diabolical. Truly diabolical. That’s how I felt, anyway, when I made up the Diabolical Female Waterfowl Quiz. But, once again, some dedicated birders have proven themselves up to the challenge by managing to correctly identify all five partial pictures of female waterfowl, truly a magnificent accomplishment. To see for yourself the quiz pics, the images [...]

If previous incarnations of the Diabolical ID Quiz left you scratching your head this one might leave you wanting to cut it right off your shoulders.  Female waterfowl, also called hens, are usually drab colors, the better to hide themselves when they are incubating their eggs.  They are still beautiful, but in muted tones that [...]

The Diabolical Waterfowl ID Quiz was both more and less diabolical than I had intended.  It’s surprising how drake ducks, with their bright colors, can still be so difficult to identify if one only has a small chunk of the bird to use for one’s identifying attempt.  Nonetheless, correct answers were, eventually, given for each [...]