Mallard

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 Just a duck you might think? There is more to them than that.  Most years we have mallards attempting to breed on our land. One year they nested too close to the stream and were flooded out, and another year they lost their brood to predators. We have yet to witness them leading the ducklings to water but we often see a family of them on the Sike (stream).

I reckon we take mallards for granted. If you look at this photo of a male mallard it is a masterpiece of colours and shades.


The female is much more subdued as she sits on the eggs, but this photograph shows the blue "speculum" that both sexes have but you can't always see.

These photos are "archive" photos as the ducks in our pond are flighty and don't sit still and pose! This morning I disturbed a pair in our rather overgrown pond in the area we call the Bog Meadow.

Mallards are extremely adaptable birds and are widely distributed across the world. Most domestic ducks are descended from mallard.
It is possible to be confused in identifying these ducks because for 3 or 4 weeks in the summer they moult all their flight feathers at the same time. During the moult the birds are in their very drab "eclipse plumage" and are harder to ID. It is also possible that there is some interbreeding with domestic ducks which can be confusing. During the moult the birds are vulnerable to predation.

Mallards are surface feeders (dabbling ducks).
The female lays between 8 and 13 creamy white eggs on alternate days. The birds don't start to incubate until all the eggs are laid so that after  28 days the ducklings hatch all together. Feeding takes 50 to 60 days but the ducklings can swim as soon as they are born.


Diary.
It was a lovely sunny day yesterday Still a lot of common gull over the fields. Last nights camera traps were productive as I caught some good views of a polecat hunting.













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