Duck (Warwickshire, UK) (1 Viewer)

[Matt Griffiths]

Hello all,
I've recently come across this interesting female duck at my local lakes. I thought she might be a hybrid, and took pics. Any thoughts?

Matt

 

[Matt Griffiths]

More pics:

 

[Tideliner]

What makes you think its a hybrid / It is as bog standard female mallard as you will ever find.

 

[ian hamilton]

What makes you think its a hybrid / It is as bog standard female mallard as you will ever find.

yeah agree,nailed on female mallard to me to

 

[nickderry]

agreed that it is 100% a female mallard, but certainly not as bog-standard as you'd have us believe; it has a very strong facial pattern, these birds often get wishfully misidentified as garganey!!!

So in conclusion, yeah, mallard.

 

[David Norgate]

Glad you posted that comment, nick. Yes it is a feamle mallard but I find it rather disparaging comment to call it 'as bog standard female mallard as you will ever find'. I find plenty of female mallards and they DO NOT look exactly like this!

 

[Joern Lehmhus]

agree it is not bog standard, but mallard it is.

some domestic races of mallard show such headpattern, but sometimes you also have it in birds looking "wild".

 

[Tideliner]

ok maybe not quite standard , but a very common face patten. I see and handle many with this type of face patten in Norfolk every year. Illistrations show the dark eyestripe in BWP and though not a stripe it does show a darkish cheek patch

 

[Matt Griffiths]

Thanks guys for the ID help.

I only asked because she was most unlike the other female Mallards there and my thinking when I first posted was that she was Garganey x Mallard. My photos are poor, but in the field she is a very striking bird with a rather stripey face and a mainly dark upper mandible (dirty orange-grey area near bill tip only). Also, I only noticed her sometime last week, and so I thought she might've arrived recently (unlike the other Mallards).

Matt