Mallard

Identification

The drake is unmistakable: a glossy bottle-green head, a thin white collar ring, a chestnut-brown breast and a grey body that ends in a black rear with curled tail feathers. The female is a mottled brown bird with an orange-and-black bill and a blue speculum edged in white — and she is the one doing the loud quacking. Eclipse males in late summer look like females but keep a plain yellowish bill and a darker crown.

Mallards are dabblers, tipping forward rather than diving, so their tails point skyward while they filter seeds, pondweed and insect larvae out of shallow water. They also graze on grass, take grain and scraps in parks, and follow ploughs for spilled seed. Pair bonds form on the wintering grounds, and the female alone incubates eight to thirteen eggs in a down-lined nest that is often well away from the water's edge.

Look for them on almost any lowland water body, but the easiest views come in city parks and on village ponds where the birds are used to people. Numbers peak in autumn and winter, when northern breeders move south and join mixed flocks with other dabblers. Scan those flocks carefully — hybrids with other Anas ducks show a greenish head on a female-like body.