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The Mallard Duck
MALLARD ( Anas platyrhynchos ) 20 - 28"
Two white borders on violet-blue speculum, glossy green head, narrow white
collar. Body grayish with chestnut breast, white tail with upcurled black
central feathers.
Best known and most important of all ducks, the Mallard (Anas
platyrhynchos) ranges over much of the northern hemisphere. The species
has provided an important source of food for man for thousands of years.
In North America, it is the most abundant waterfowl, the most heavily
hunted, and the most intensively studied. Long ago man caught wild ducks
and tried to tame them. The found the mallards the easiest to tame. Most of
the domestic ducks are considered to have been developed from the ancestral
mallard, though some breeds no longer look like their wild relatives.
The sexes are distinctly different in breeding season. The drake is
identified by his uncrested glossy green head and neck, the narrow white
collar, the chestnut breast, white tail with up-curled black central
feathers, yellowish bill, orange feet and purple-blue speculum. The female
is a mottled brown with a whitish tail, dark bill patched with orange, and
orange feet. She also has the purplish-blue speculum, and when in flight
both sexes reveal the conspicuous white borders on each side of the
speculum. The sexes also differ in voice. The females utter a loud "quark"
and the drakes have a soft reedy call.
Mallards are dabblers, and feed with their tails in the air. They prefer
the shallow waters and marshes, as they cannot dive deep. They are very
adaptable, and any swampy ploace will do. The drakes are promiscuous, and
courtship consists of several drakes pursuing a duck over the marshes. The
female stops the chase by turning to touch the favored drake with her bill.
Then they fly off together. She picks out the nesting site and builds the
nest while her mate defends it against intruding pairs.
The mallard nest is built in a clump of grass, reeds, or a pile of brush.
It is not uncommon for the female to use an old crow, magpie or raven nest.
She builds it of grass and weeds, and lines it with the fluffy down and
feathers from her breast. Six to ten greenish buff eggs are laid, which
take about four weeks to hatch. The fuzzy yellow ducklings take to the
water very soon and follow their mother. When alarmed, they can dive or
scramble upon shore, where the vegetation hides them. The male does not
aid in raising the young, but goes deep into the marsh to molt and while
away the summer in the sloughs.
The diet of the mallard is varied. They destroy more mosquitoes than the
goldfish. They eat many grasshoppers and other insects. Where available,
acorns are a fovored food, which are gobbled up by the dozens. The water
plants are their most important food, but they can do without them if
necessary.
The pintails start south in August, and teals and canvasbacks soon follow.
But the mallards stay on through the nippy days of autumn. In November,
when the temperature drops below freezing and remains there, the hardy
mallards move southward. They can live with the cold, but they must have
open water. Near brackish estuaries in southeastern Alaska these hardy
birds remain all winter. When the water freezes temporarily, the mallards,
like the black duck, will go into the fields to feed on seeds of weeds and
grasses. If deep snow covers these, they must search for open water.
The mallard species interbreeds with the black duck, pintail, and other
species. The breeding range is from Alaska across to Nova Scotia, and south
to Virginia, southern New Mexico, Utah and California. In winter they can
be found in the southern parts of the United States, and some travel into
Mexico, Panama, and the West Indies.
-- by Marie L. Atkinson
REFERENCES:
Field Guide to Western Birds
Roger Tory Peterson
National Geographic -- Surface Feeding Ducks
S. Dillon Ripley
Field Guide to Natural History
E. Laurence Palmer
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