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| [Note Guidelines] Photographer's Note |
I took this photo whilst visiting Goolwa with a friend recently. We think it was a Mallard Duck, but we're not 100% sure. It could be crossed with a native breed of duck, which does happen quite often. It did have an iridescent green on the topside of its wings. (See workshop for another view showing this colour on the wings) Anyway this duck was certainly enjoying itself in the water, preening and splashing around a lot.
Mallards can be found almost anywhere in the world. They dominate the Northern Hemisphere, and can be found easly in Oceana, Asia, Africa, South America and many islands.
Habitat
Most often, they prefer wetlands, where highly productive waters produce large amounts of floating, emergent and submerged vegetation. Wetlands also produce a great deal of aquatic invertebrates on which mallards feed.
Physical Description
The mallard is undoubtably the most recognized waterfowl in the world. The familiar duck morphology is complemented with a iridesent blue speculum on the wings in both sexes. On the male, the notable characteristics are the green iridesent plumage on the head and neck, and curled black feathers on the tail. The female's plumage is drab brown.
Reproduction
Most mallard hens breed as yearlings, but they may not have much success; studies show that older hens have much lower duckling mortality than yearlings. Pair bonding starts as early as October and continues through March. Mallard males leave the hen soon after mating occurs. The hen usually lays 9 -13 eggs in a nest on the ground near a body of water. When the ducklings hatch after 26-28 days, the hen leads them to water and does not return to the nest.
Behavior
After the breeding season, mallards form flocks and migrate from northern lattitudes to warmer southern areas. There they wait and feed until the breeding season starts again. Some mallards, however, may choose to stay through the winter in areas where food and shelter are abundant; these mallards make up a resident populations.
The familiar "quack" of ducks is from the female mallard--it is named the "decrescendo call", and can be heard for miles. A female will give the call when she wants to bring other ducks to her, such as her ducklings, and as a result it is also known as the "hail call".
Food Habits
Mallards consume a wide variety of foods, including vegetation, insects, worms, gastropods and arthropods, although they are not restricted to these. They also take advantage of human food sources, such as gleaning grain from crops.
This information came from:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Anas_platyrhynchos.html
PP Work:
RAW to JPEG
Cropped from original a fair bit
Altered contrast and brightness levels a tad
Sharpened the image
Thanks for looking and for your comments and critiques! Cheers Tina :-) |
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