Mallard - Anas platyrhynchos

Mallard

Anas platyrhynchos

Order : Anseriformes

Family : Anatidae ;

Biometrics :

Size : 51 à 62 cm
Wingspan : 81 à 98 cm
Weight : 850 à 1400 g

Longevity : 29 years

IUCN conservation status :

Extinct

Threatened

Least
concern

Extinc
in the Wild

Near
threatened

Not
evaluated

EX EW CR EN VU NT LC NE

Geographic range :

Synonyms : Kryakva (ru), Gräsand (sv), Anade real (es), Germano reale (it), Stockente (al), Wilde Eend (nl), Mallard (en)

Physical description :
Mallard is a large and heavy duck. Male has long grey body, with purple-brown breast. We can see an iridescent blue speculum bordered with white on wings in male and female, and curled black feathers on short tail in male. Rump and undertail are black.
Head and neck show iridescent green feathers and white collar between green and purple-brown breast.
Bill is large and yellow, with black nail at tip. Eyes are dark brown. Legs and feet are red-orange.
Male in eclipse has dark green crown and pale brown face, with dark eyeline. Breast is mostly brown, as body and mottled wings. Bill is greenish-yellow and unmarked.
Female is browner than male, mottled with buff, white and brown. Face is pale brown with dark eyeline. Crown shows dark streaks. Underparts are pale with whitish tail, pale undertail and belly. Bill is orange or yellow, with some central black splotches. Legs are red-orange.
Immature resembles female, with brown bill in male.

Voice :
Sound from CD 'Tous les Oiseaux d'Europe' by Jean C. Roché by courtesy of Sittelle and CEBA. Mallard is very vocal, especially female. Male gives a soft rasping 'kreep', or 'rab-rab', and grunts and whistles during displays. Female utters series of quacks, descending towards the end 'QUACK-QUACK-QUACK-quack-quack-quack'.

Habitat : Mallard lives in any form of wetland, slow rivers, ponds, fresh or salt water marshes, freshwater lakes, estuaries and sometimes sheltered coastal bays. It needs floating and emergent vegetation to produce aquatic invertebrates and seeds of these plants.
GEOGRAPHIC RANGE: Mallard is widespread and abundant, and can be found almost anywhere in the world. Northern birds may move southwards after breeding season to warm areas.
Some populations are resident if food resources and sheltered areas are abundant.

Behaviour : Mallard is a surface-feeding duck. It feeds by dabbling and up-ending, tipping the head under the surface and tail held vertically, to feed while swimming. They wade in shallow water, but also graze on land, and glean grain from crops in winter.
Mallard is normally shy and wary in wild, but it becomes very tame in urban parks, taking advantage of human food. It is highly gregarious out of breeding season, and form large flocks.
Courtship displays shows male ruffling its glossy feathers. It swims around female with stretch neck and then, with head behind on the back. Male also erects its body on water with fluffing breast feathers, and ejects some water from the bill while it utters a slight whistle. Then, it rapidly raises its tail two or three times. At the end, male erects head feathers, stretching its neck just close to the water, and it swims in all directions as it was crazy! Copulation takes place in the water, after elaborate displays. Pairs form long time before breeding season, and courtship displays may be seen all winter.
Female usually chooses territory close to where she was born, and some females nest year after year on the same site. Pair doesn't stay together for long time. Male leaves female when she begins to incubate, joining groups of other males to begin the annual moult.
They are generally monogamous, but males perform forced extra-pair copulations without any courtship display before. Several males chase a single female and mate with her.
Mallards frequently interbreed with wild and domesticated species, giving various hybrids.
Female is an excellent mother. If surprised by a predator, she flaps its wings and squawks across the ground, as if injured. This attitude lures predators away from the nest.

Flight : Mallard has rapid flight for its size, and may reach speeds of 40mph. They are agile fliers, taking off almost vertically.
It flies with stretched head and neck forwards, with shallow rapids wing beats.

Reproduction-nesting : Mallard's nest is generally built on the ground, hidden in dead grasses and reeds, in marshes or marshy ground, sometimes far from water on higher levels. They may also nest in hollow of a tree. Nest is lined with bits of rushes, grass and weeds.
Female lays 8 to 10 pale green eggs, sometimes almost white. Eggs are laid daily. Incubation lasts about 30 days, by female alone, and starts with the last egg laid. During incubation, female uses fine feathers from her belly to line the nest. She pulls these feathers over the eggs when she leaves the nest to search for food.
Chicks hatch precocial and they swim as soon as their downy feathers are dry. Once in the water, chicks find their own food. They gradually loose their down, and grow their feathers. They need 10 weeks to reach complete plumage. They perform their first flight about two months after hatching.
This species may re-nest several times if nest is destroyed. However, Mallards produce only one brood per year.

Food habits : Mallard is primarily vegetarian, feeding on varied seeds, but it also consumes some molluscs, insects, small fish, tadpoles, snails and fish eggs.

Protection / threats : Mallard is famed as a game bird throughout its range, but numbers are not in decline. This species, as others duck species, is loosing its wet habitat, but it may adapt in urban parks and other places with water.

Other links :
Iucn
Birdlife

Specification sheet created by Nicole Bouglouan

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