Includes: Mexican Duck
- Anas platyrhynchos
Identification
Drake
- Green head separated from a brown breast by a white ring.
- Yellow bill.
- Curly central tail feathers.
Female
- Streaked brown body
- Brown bill with a variable amount of orange around the edge
Both have a white-edged blue speculum
Eclipse male resembles female, but retains yellow bill.
Has been domesticated and many unusual Mallards are either escaped domestics or hybrids with such birds.
Distribution
The most abundant and widespread duck in the region breeding throughout Europe from Iceland and northern Scandinavia south to the Mediterranean, on some Mediterranean islands and throughout Turkey. Rare and local breeder in North-West Africa and Cyprus.
Resident or partial migrant in Iceland, the British Isles and Continental Europe from Spain east to the Baltic States and south to Greece and Turkey. Summer visitor to much of Scandinavia and Russia.
Vagrant north to Svalbard and south to the Azores where has bred.
Taxonomy
Subspecies[1]
Northern
- A. p. platyrhynchos:
- A. p. conboschas:
- Coastal south-western Greenland
- A. p. diazi:(Mexican)
- Southern Texas, New Mexico and Arizona south to central Mexico
Habitat
Virtually any kind of freshwater from small ponds on farms and in town parks up to the largest reservoirs, and also swamps and marshes.
In winter especially, also on estuaries and sometimes on sheltered seas.
Behaviour
Diet
Diet includes insects, seed, roots, grain either whilst dabbling or on land.
Vocalisation
Male: Quiet kwack, nasally rheb.
Female: Loud traditional quack
<flashmp3>Anas platyrhynchos (song).mp3</flashmp3>
Listen in an external program
External Links
