[cobirds] Mallard hybrid

Hi all:

Ted Floyd wrote:

female plumage" overall (no ruddy suffusion on breast, uppertail coverts uncurled and concolor with body, etc.)

uniform yellow bill, a hair duller than the yellow on the bill of nearby Mallards

 

fairly bright/light purplish speculum, with little or no white fringing

 

bland dusky face with thin dark supercilium and thin dark cap; facial features not very well defined

prominent gray scapulars, basically identical to those of nearby Mallards

 

rectrices notably paler than ground color of body

As to the sex of the bird, I'm not positive. Based on the preceding, I'd say female. Plus, the bird copulated with a male Mallard. But Mallards are, hmm, well, this is a PG listserv... So I'm just not sure; and, at one point, I thought I glimpsed some green flecking behind the eye, but, despite extensive trying, I was unable to reproduce that result. (Now this may sound weird, but how would you distinguish a female American Black Duck x Mallard from a male Mottled Duck x Mallard?)

 

 

My response is that females of neither American Black Duck nor Mallard have yellow bills.  Additionally, because yellow bill is a trait of males in the entire large, brown, dabbling-duck complex (see Colorado Birds 46:304-305), I have a hard time imagining that this bird is a female.  However, the purple speculum with little or no white certainly suggests American Black Duck as at least one of the parents.  My biggest question is how pale was the tail?  If just pale, then could it be a young male American Black Duck with a typically pale youngster-type tail?

 

Enjoy,

 

Tony Leukering

Villas, NJ

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group.
To post to this group, send email to cobirds@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to cobirds+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.