Muscovy Ducks and Harlequin Ducks (1 Viewer)

mrmanning · Mar 9, 2009

My uncle has a farm which has about 30 ponds. It is a hobby farm, and he bought it "as is". On the first few ponds there are hoards of Muscovy Ducks, and 2 Harlequinn Ducks. This farm is in Southern Ontario.

My peterson guide has both of these species, but not listed for this area, so I am guessing these are domestics, as they don't leave the ponds.

My question is, how can one differentiate domestics from wild birds? These birds look exactly the same as the ones in my guide.

Mysticete · Mar 9, 2009

That's often a good question, and a particular problem with waterfowl and birds which end up in the pet industry.

Sometimes it's pretty obvious; for instance the bird is hanging out in an area clearly not it's natural habitat (i.e. a harlequin duck in a farm pond), or so far out of range that vagrant status would be unlikely (the muscovies in the same pond).

Other clues include who it is associating with (for instance, a greylag goose in a flock of domestics might be an escapee or feral bird; one traveling with migratory Canadian geese from greenland could very well be a natural vagrant); presence of leg bands, tameness, and, often with escaped songbirds, wear on the feathers. If you have trouble, your far from the only person.

mrmanning · Mar 10, 2009

Mysticete said:
That's often a good question, and a particular problem with waterfowl and birds which end up in the pet industry.

Sometimes it's pretty obvious; for instance the bird is hanging out in an area clearly not it's natural habitat (i.e. a harlequin duck in a farm pond), or so far out of range that vagrant status would be unlikely (the muscovies in the same pond).

Other clues include who it is associating with (for instance, a greylag goose in a flock of domestics might be an escapee or feral bird; one traveling with migratory Canadian geese from greenland could very well be a natural vagrant); presence of leg bands, tameness, and, often with escaped songbirds, wear on the feathers. If you have trouble, your far from the only person.

Thanks for the reply.

These are certainly tame birds. I was feeding the muscovies right from my hand, and the harlequinns were coming close too.

Muscovy Ducks and Harlequin Ducks (1 Viewer)

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mrmanning

Southern Ontario Birder

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mrmanning

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