northeast-flora-and-fauna

I saw this guy and his girl out for a swim in the Delaware Raritan Canal. (Don't try this yourself; the rangers have rules against this.) I've certainly talked about Mallards before, and they and the Canada Goose are the easiest-to-find year-round waterfowl in New Jersey, so unless you spend your days in a sensory deprivation tank you've probably seen plenty of them [1]. There is a belief among hunters that a northern group (subspecies?) of Mallard are larger, and thus more desirable to hunters, but given the way they breed it's virtually impossible for there to be an isolated population of Mallards that don't mix with their cousins. Basically female Mallards hook up with males regardless of the male's birthplace and lead him back to her childhood neighborhood. Mallards are not only common and widespread across the Northern Hemisphere, they're also the ancestors of most domesticated ducks, probably making them the most abundant waterfowl species. And Ma...

A raft is one of the many names of a group of ducks, and for some reason this spot was popular with the local ducks. I think we've got 3 species out there: I think the 2 on the right are Mallards , 1 male and 1 female. The dark 1 standing in the middle might be an American Black Duck ; at least it looks quite a bit darker than the presumed female Mallard. The other 4 white-bodied ducks are almost certainly Common Mergansers , with 2 green-headed males and 2 tan-headed females. My impression is that many ducks are pairing up heading into breeding season, so 3 potential breeding pairs makes a certain amount of sense. The (presumed) American Black Duck didn't have an obvious companion, but that doesn't mean there wasn't 1 nearby. March 16, 2023 at Duke Island Park Photo 267710181, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC)

Here's another fairly common bird that I haven't shown in this blog [1], the American Black Duck . I met this pair last December. Though they're supposed to be here all year round, I tend to see them much more in the colder months: 45 pictures between October and April, 0 pictures between May and September. When I see them during the winter I'll frequently see them either in pairs or amidst mixed flocks of waterfowl. (Squabbles over mates aside, most of our waterfowl seem to be on good terms with one another .) When I see them in pairs, I suspect they're frequently a pair that'll be breeding together the following spring; they'll start forming pair bonds as early as autumn. I suspect that's what's going on in my picture below. The males and females look pretty similar to one another, and they can also be mistaken for a female Mallard . If you've got good lighting and see something the size and shape of a Mallard but that looks grayish-black inste...

A couple days ago I showed the superficial similarity between our 2 most common green-headed ducks , the Common Merganser and the Mallard . Those green heads are only present on the males of these species; are the females also similar? Not really. Other than both of them looking like ducks, there's really not much of a resemblance between female Mallards and Common Mergansers: Female Common Mergansers are mostly off-white or light gray, but unlike their male counterparts they have rich brown feathering on the head/neck, usually with a frizzy look. Female Mallards are duller brown on the head/neck but are a mottled brown below that. In flight (and sometimes in water) you'll spot some blue on the wings. While their mates might be confused with one another, these females shouldn't cause any confusion [1]. March 3, 2021 at Duke Island Park Photo 120274105, (c) jpviolette, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC) December 16, 2021 at Duke Farms Photo 174170341, (c) jpviolette, some righ...

The family connections of Mallards are pretty complicated. This article mentions 2 aspects: Mallards may interbreed with other ducks like the American Black Duck , but the hybrids but they look more like Mallards, and these hybrids usually end up breeding with Mallards rather than American Black Ducks. (This might imply a breeding preference or just reflect that there are more Mallards out there for the hybrids to breed with.) The Mallards we have around here are mostly "hybrids" themselves between North American Mallards and Eurasian Mallards. (I used quotes because both North American and Eurasian Mallards are considered to be the same species.) And this article seems to suggest that true North American Mallards (generally found in the western US) are genetically closer to some North American ducks like the American Black Duck, the Mexican Duck , and the Mottled Duck than they are to Eurasian Mallards. (To me this makes it sound like either North American and Eurasian M...