A worldwide community photographing and learning about wildlife
Project Noah Nature School
Anas platyrhynchos
This is a wild duck that appears to be a mixed breed. Yellow bill, green hue to a dark head, brown cheeks and body with a red chest.
Disneyland's Rivers of America
Spotted on Sep 26, 2011
Submitted on Sep 26, 2011
5 Comments
Wow! Thank you! Such great information. I'm a huge fan of ducks but apparently don't know much about them :)
http://www.projectnoah.org/spottings
Here is a male mallard going into or coming out of eclipse
What made me click a picture was the blue ribbon on it.
I would go with male mallard either going in or coming out of eclipse :) Though it could be a hybrid, what's termed in England as a "manky mallard" haha! There are a fair few of those about where I live, since I'm near a river and a lake, but this looks much more like a transition from eclipse to me. Of course, there are ducks you get in N. America that you don't get here so would make some hybrids I'd never seen before! Either way, a mallard of some description!
The faded chestnut patch, splotchy green head point to this bird being a mallard drake probably just now leaving eclipse plumage. Mallards drakes, in late summer, look very much like mallard hens--mostly in a patterned brown coloration-- but with a yellow bill (not mottled like a mallard hen). This bird is probably just changing back into its breeding plumage with which many of us are more familiar.
That being said, it could be a hybrid. Mallards hybridize often with other species, especially black ducks. See http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Malla... for more information. Especially look at the slide show at the bottom of the page to see photos of hybrids and drakes in eclipse plumage.
Seems like a juvenile yellow billed duck.