The Mallard Duck is another very common bird in this area. They are so common that I’ll have to admit I overlook them sometimes when out birding, and as a result don’t seem to have too many pictures of them in my archives. Not really fair for this really beautiful duck.
The male Mallard is decked out with a glorious green shiny head (see picture above) while the females (below) are a little more drab, but certainly still beautiful. However as fall comes the males lose their colouration as they go into their eclipse plumage where their colouration matches the females. I realized this one fall while visiting the local duck pond and wondered what happened to all the Drakes as it just looked like there were females everywhere. So I went home and Googled “what happens to all the male ducks in autumn” to give me the answer (gotta love Google 🙂 ). One just needs to look at the beak colour then to identify male vs female.
OTHER POSTS WITH MALLARD DUCKS:
Starting from Scratch ~ part 1 [#1 to 5]
A day at Stanley Parks’ Lost Lagoon
Goslings and Ducklings
BCSONGBIRD 