The Mallard Duck

Best known and most important of all ducks, the Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) ranges over much of the northern hemisphere. The species has provided an important source of food for man for thousands of years. In North America, it is the most abundant waterfowl, the most heavily hunted, and the most intensively studied. Long ago man caught wild ducks and tried to tame them. The found the mallards the easiest to tame. Most of the domestic ducks are considered to have been developed from the ancestral mallard, though some breeds no longer look like their wild relatives.
The sexes are distinctly different in breeding season. The drake is identified by his uncrested glossy green head and neck, the narrow white collar, the chestnut breast, white tail with up-curled black central feathers, yellowish bill, orange feet and purple-blue speculum. The female is a mottled brown with a whitish tail, dark bill patched with orange, and orange feet. She also has the purplish-blue speculum, and when in flight both sexes reveal the conspicuous white borders on each side of the speculum. The sexes also differ in voice. The females utter a loud "quark" and the drakes have a soft reedy call.
Mallards are dabblers, and feed with their tails in the air. They prefer the shallow waters and marshes, as they cannot dive deep. They are very adaptable, and any swampy ploace will do. The drakes are promiscuous, and courtship consists of several drakes pursuing a duck over the marshes. The female stops the chase by turning to touch the favored drake with her bill. Then they fly off together. She picks out the nesting site and builds the nest while her mate defends it against intruding pairs.
The mallard nest is built in a clump of grass, reeds, or a pile of brush. It is not uncommon for the female to use an old crow, magpie or raven nest. She builds it of grass and weeds, and lines it with the fluffy down and feathers from her breast. Six to ten greenish buff eggs are laid, which take about four weeks to hatch. The fuzzy yellow ducklings take to the water very soon and follow their mother. When alarmed, they can dive or scramble upon shore, where the vegetation hides them. The male does not aid in raising the young, but goes deep into the marsh to molt and while away the summer in the sloughs.
The diet of the mallard is varied. They destroy more mosquitoes than the goldfish. They eat many grasshoppers and other insects. Where available, acorns are a fovored food, which are gobbled up by the dozens. The water plants are their most important food, but they can do without them if necessary.
The pintails start south in August, and teals and canvasbacks soon follow. But the mallards stay on through the nippy days of autumn. In November, when the temperature drops below freezing and remains there, the hardy mallards move southward. They can live with the cold, but they must have open water. Near brackish estuaries in southeastern Alaska these hardy birds remain all winter. When the water freezes temporarily, the mallards, like the black duck, will go into the fields to feed on seeds of weeds and grasses. If deep snow covers these, they must search for open water.
The mallard species interbreeds with the black duck, pintail, and other species. The breeding range is from Alaska across to Nova Scotia, and south to Virginia, southern New Mexico, Utah and California. In winter they can be found in the southern parts of the United States, and some travel into Mexico, Panama, and the West Indies.
-- by Marie L. Atkinson

REFERENCES:
Field Guide to Western Birds
Roger Tory Peterson

National Geographic -- Surface Feeding Ducks
S. Dillon Ripley

Field Guide to Natural History
E. Laurence Palmer