Saturday 3 April 2010

Odd quacker

Something about this picture isn't quite right.
A Mallard with a blue bill. Mallards can interbreed with a number of other dabbling duck species, which sometimes results in some very odd looking hybrids. In this case he has ended up with a blue coloured bill.


A Little Girl Talk

18 comments:

  1. excellent! very nice photos and yes I'm constantly surprised by the varieties of mallards!

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  2. I've never seen one like that before - but the top shot looks like he's lost his foot in the mud! heheheee

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  3. What an interesting find. I think he looks rather dapper with the blue bill.
    Nice shots!
    Carletta’s Captures.

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  4. Beautiful capture of the mallards. Love the second photo reflection of the water.

    Im following you now. Please follow me too.

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  5. Beautiful, shots...I have never seen a blue-billed mallard, thanks for sharing with us.

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  6. Cool sighting and a neat looking blue bill. Great shots, Michael!

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  7. Wow cool, I didn't notice it, until you pointed it out. Very interesting.

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  8. Excellent captures, very beautiful.

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  9. Hi Michael, never mind about the crossbreeding it came out unique anyway ... lovely shot ...

    thanks for dropping by ... followed you too!

    Majestic Mt. Apo
    White Monarch
    Happy Easter

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  10. Michael: Very cool Mallards, these are our common bird.

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  11. Great shots and an intereting duck! :)

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  12. Odd indeed, we get some strange looking ducks at a local lake, mostly between plain white ducks that people of dumped and the mallards. Nice shots.

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  13. Fantastic captures, Michael and great reflections too.

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  14. Hi Michael, great photos of one of my favorite birds. Thanks for stopping by and reassuring me of their temperament. I found it very interesting. Have a great week.

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  15. Some of their cross breeding can cause ID headaches lol
    Unusual find Michael, and good capture.

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  16. ditto what holdingmoments said...i have made myself a tiny bit insane trying to identify weird hybrids! I'll ask my husband though, he's likely to know that stuff off the top of his head. Great pictures nonetheless! :)

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  17. Cool catch! Yep, those mallard will jump on just about anything :)

    Back when I was a kid we had some white muscovy ducks on our farm. One year one muscovy crossed with a mallard making some huge mallard colored offspring.

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