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Or is it just a mallard drake that is late to receive his breeding suit?

Shot him in a group of mallards feeding in a ditch this morning. Notice the breast, tailfeathers(coverts, I think, are mottled and not entirely green like the other drake, tail feathers are more tan than white) and stripe thru his eye. I wonder if he's a black/mallard cross?





Wingman

He may be trisexual.

Wingman,

My guess is he is just a drake that either had problems molting this year, or he is molting right now. I can remember in the late summer, at the golf course, seeing Mallards that look just like that. When a week before they all looked like hens, and a week after most of them were drakes.

MAG

Definitely late if he's molting. The resident ducks here were molting back in September dove season.

On second thought, look at the bill. Unless he's a first year bird, his bill ought to be the same color as the other drake. And he was as big, if not bigger than that drake beside him.

Wingman

The color of his bill is what has me puzzled! Until I looke at that, I'd have thought an eclipse drake. Not so sure, now.

I had the same thought the instant you did, Mr. Bobby.

Wingman

Just what kind of "ditch" did you shoot him over?

Is there a nuclear plant near Isola?

Just kiddin'

MAG

I killed one that looked just like that two years ago in Attala Co. on the Big Black. I brought him back to Slidell and took him to a USWF biologist and he said "that it was a mallard that was late to molt". I ask about the bill and was told that the color would change also. I don't know if I beliaeve that! Jack

Y'all are probably correct, but I would figure him to be much smaller (breast was same size as other mallard) if he was a molting bird.

I didn't think the bills changed colors on molting birds, just juvies moving into adulthood.

Thanks for bursting my bubble I thought my ditch hunting tactics had really payed off.

Wingman

Judging by the bill and the mottling, I would thing its a Mallard/Black duck hybrid.

With the speckles on his breast he may be half mallard half black duck. Are his wing patches blue? I killed a half gadwall half mallard hen one time(as id'd by the warden)her feathers where still pin feathers. He lookes delicious either way

http://birds.cornell.edu/homestudy/Quiz_Q2.html

Note what paragraph says about molt drake's bill color.

In the photo on the following link, look at the bill color. Stays the same year-round.
http://birdinfo.com/Mallard_0005.html

Who knows?

Wingman

my guess by looking at the bill which was the first thing to draw my attention is that it is a mallard - mottled duck cross. I used to see/shoot alot of "summer mallards" in the marsh around Houma and New Bohemia in louisianna. They look like a hen mallard mostly.

dos gris wrote:Judging by the bill and the mottling, I would thing its a Mallard/Black duck hybrid.

I agree, with dos gris.
And mallards do not change the color of their bills. As far as the wing patch they look the same from here but this is the black ducks.


and this is the malards.


It looks like a hybrid to me. I would mount him out of spite.

Sense Mottled ducks stay pretty much around the coastal marsh year -round I think it is more likely the duck would of bred with a Black Duck.....making it a Mallard/Black Duck hybrid.