Mallard Japan (1 Viewer)

I made a bit of a fool of myself a few days ago with a Teal which showed up on my patch on its own which I thought might be something else.

But I'll risk it again, as I really am poor on female/eclipse ducks.

The bird on the right in this photo is (Eastern) Spot-billed Duck which are all-year resident here in Nara in Central Japan (it's non-migratory, though it moves locally). But is the bird on the left a plain-vanilla Mallard, or might it be a Mallard-SBD cross? I saw a couple of male Mallards in deep moult last week, but otherwise it's been three months about since a Mallard has shown up here.

Like my Teal mistake last week, part of the problem is a flock bird showing up totally without any other members of its species.

Very dark for an eclipse drake Mallard (yellow bill indicates it is a drake); I'd think this one could well be a hybrid (they hybridise frequently).

Worth adding though that vagrants, even of flocking species, are often solitary; where they can find a related species, they'll usually join them though. So even Sociable Lapwings can be solitary if they go astray, but when they do, they usually end up in flocks of Northern Lapwings as the nearest substitute.

Thanks. This is a drake Mallard that I saw last week at the same place, with two Spot-billed. At first I wasn't sure what this was, either.

The left hand duck is a drake mallard well within the natural variation for a true wild mallard with no sign of hybrid blood. The right hand bird is a spot bill.

The duck inthe second photo is a mallard x domestic mallard type. The blue bill and the high body in relation to the water line gives that away.

Great, thanks both. It's interesting that the second bird (actually the first I saw) is a cross because in Japan, unlike continental Asia, duck breeding and eating isn't a thing at all. So I wonder where it came from? In Nara we are in the centre of the country, and I've never heard of any duck-breeding here.

On this pond, as it happens, there is a white domestic duck which has been a permanent resident for years (it used to be an entertainment fishing pond - catch a carp, throw it back) along with a Mute Swan which is still doing fine also - they were put there as decoration. However, the domestic duck hangs out with two Spot-billed Ducks, and there has never been any sign of breeding activity that I have seen.

I have read that Mallards and Spot-billed interbreed, but I have never seen it here, even though we have hundreds of both in the winter. I think it may be rarer than some suppose.

Thanks again.