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Here is another in a series of posts that celebrates the beauty hidden in plain sight, the astounding in the ordinary. Our subject today is the humble Mallard. While we all love birds for their spectacular and stupefying relationship to the air, waterfowl have another element to navigate and they are equally attuned to its [...]

There really isn’t much to say about the Mottled Duck. It is one of several species in the Mallard-complex of ducks, along with American Black Duck, Mexican Duck, and quite a few others. You find them in the south from Florida to Texas and down into Mexico, occasionally as far north as the Carolinas in [...]

Beauty can be found in the most commonplace. I was struck the other day by the perfect patterns created by a preening Mallard. Appreciation of the ordinary in a new light can be as fulfilling as a many a birding experience. Each feather was attended with care by the drake and each fell back perfectly into its [...]

Bird blogging is a privilege, in that recounting one’s birding excursions is a lot more fun when an audience actually follows the action. I’ve always loved sharing the details of my trips, but discovered early that writing the same species over and over became dreadfully tedious. Back in 2007, I tried to streamline my bird [...]

When the American Ornithologists’ Union publishes its annual North American checklist update next month, many birders will be disappointed to see that a proposal to re-split Mexican Duck (Anas diazi) from Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) has failed. The Mexican Duck, as its name suggests, is native to Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States, and [...]

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, [...]

Everyone likes to see ducklings and almost everywhere in the world the ducklings that people are most likely to see are Mallards.  Or, at least, people are likely to see Mallards and near-Mallards, otherwise known as Manky Mallards.  Here are a series of duckling pictures taken back in 2007 in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

During my most recent trip to California, I had a chance to drop in on Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in Los Angeles. The waterfowl there were mighty tame, with wild ducks, geese, and cormorants practically posing for portraits. But the bird that really captured my eye was not purebred but rather poultry. This fine [...]

Three broods, one of 11, one of 9, and one of 3, all in Congress Park in Saratoga Springs. I was wondering where all the female ducks had went… The oddball duckling was with what looked like a pure female Mallard, and all the other ducklings looked like normal Mallards. Was some egg dumping going [...]

Mallards, though common, are often overlooked. Many birders consider them a “trash” bird, that is, one that is so common that they are hardly worth taking the time to study or appreciate. This is unfortunate, as the gaudy green of the male Mallard is certainly worth looking at and is matched in its brilliant beauty [...]

Once our ceremonial duties at Jay and April’s wedding were concluded, it was time to move south to visit old friends in Orange County. We wished the happy couple the best of luck and took off. But first, we had to go back to Sepulveda Basin! We saw all of the birds of the previous [...]