Natural History

Posted in birds | Tagged domestic mallard, Khaki Campbell duck | 4 Comments

4 Responses

1. on June 3, 2014 at 2:12 am Jess Perfectly Snarky Ruffner

   Swim for your lives, little ducklings! ‘Ware the large golden predator behind you!

   
   
2. on June 3, 2014 at 7:24 am dobermann

   Here are scans of snapshots I took 30 years ago.
   I had just returned home from overseas and found a family of ducks in my yard, evidently seeking a water habitat. I couldn’t believe it as I live in built up suburbia, though there is a river about one mile away as the duck flies.

   
   
   
   
   

   Do you recognize the species?

   In the end all was well. To make a long story short, all eight of them were eventually caught and the entire family relocated to preserve some miles away where there is another river and other ducks.

   
   
   • on June 3, 2014 at 7:46 am retrieverman

     Looks like a Pacific black duck:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_black_duck

     
     
     • on June 3, 2014 at 12:42 pm dobermann

       Korrekt! A Pacific black duck from the Sydney area.

       Years ago when I lived in Massachusetts I used to spend summers at Sebago Lake in Maine. There I would see both American black ducks and mallards. The mallards appeared to congregate in larger groups than the blacks. I remember one group of mallards included a white duck. The white duck was the same size and had the streamlined body shape of wild mallards rather than the chunkier body of a domestic breed. I suspect there was a domestic bird in the family tree of this group and the recessive gene for white is a legacy of it. In other respects they looked like any other wild mallards.

       Since my “ducks in the yard” experience I have wondered what a cross between a Pacific black duck and an American black duck would look like. Perhaps kind of like an extinct “Mariana Mallard” hen but a tad darker. I doubt such a cross has ever been made because Pacific black ducks are probably rare in avicultural collections in the USA and American black ducks are non-existent in Australia.

       
       

Comments are closed.