When you walk around our local lakes, ponds and rivers, there is a good chance you will see mallards in and around the water. They are the most widespread duck in North America, and they are common in most places where they live. Because they are so common, they are what most people think of when they think of ducks.
Some mallards migrate, but not all do. Birds that have good access to food and water will stay in one area year-round, but mallards from northern climates often migrate. In the Great Lakes region, some mallards migrate, but others may stay put all year.
Male and female mallards start to form partnerships in the fall and winter, several months before the spring breeding season. Once it's time to build a nest, the pair will choose a site. They usually pick a hidden away spot on the ground.
The female will build the nest by forming a depression on the ground and lining it with grasses, leaves and other plant material. Clutches can have between 1 and 13 eggs. The female will incubate them for about a month.
The newly hatched ducklings can swim after only a few hours. It takes about 50 days before they are able to fly.
Read on to learn more about mallards.
Males and females look distinctly different
Mallards are probably the most familiar duck in all of the United States, but the male and female ducks look very different from one another. Like with many other duck species, the male mallards are more bright and vibrant in color than the females. The males have shiny dark green heads and bright yellow bills. Underneath their iridescent green heads is a white band on their necks, and their bodies are mostly brown or brownish gray.
Female mallards are dull and drab compared to their colorful male counterparts. They are mostly mottled brown and tan, and they have orange bills. Juvenile males look similar to the females, but they have bills that are more yellow in color than orange.
Despite their different appearances, males and females do share one physical feature. All mallards have a blue patch on their wings that is only visible when they are flying. The patch, called a speculum patch, is a shade of purplish blue, and it is outlined in white.
They don't all quack
Cows moo, pigs oink and ducks quack, right? Yes and no. Cows do moo and pigs do oink, but only some ducks quack. Among mallards, it's only the females that quack. Males do not. The quacking sound that comes to mind when people think of ducks is actually the sound of the female mallard. The females generally call in a series of two to 10 quacks, with the sound getting softer as they do.
Words to know
Clutch: A group of eggs fertilized at the same time.
Deformed: Not having the normal or natural shape or form.
Forage: To search widely for food.
Imprinting: An important period of development where animals learn to identify with their species.
Incubate: To sit on eggs to keep them warm to bring them to hatching.
Raspy: Hoarse or harsh sounding.
Not only do male mallards not quack, they generally don't make much noise at all. They will sometimes give a raspy call, or they will make noise when fighting with other males. They also make a rattling sound as part of a mating display to their female partner. They can create this sound by rubbing their bill against their flight feathers.
They are dabblers
Ducks are essentially divided into two groups based on how they feed: dabblers and divers. Mallards are dabbling ducks, which means they skim the surface of the water to look for food. Diving ducks entirely submerge themselves underwater while foraging for food.
Dabbling ducks are the ones you will see with their back ends sticking straight up in the air. To get at the food they find, they tip their back ends up and stick their heads underwater to eat insects, worms, snails, seeds, plant matter and more.
Other dabbling ducks besides mallards include teals and wigeons. Diving ducks include ring-necked ducks, canvasbacks and redheads. Some of these ducks can go as deep as 40 feet underwater to search for food!
Because of how they hunt, dabbling ducks and diving ducks are built a little differently from each other. This is noticeable when they are on land. Dabbling ducks walk more smoothly on land, while diving ducks can be awkward and clumsy. That's because the feet of dabbling ducks are centered on their bodies, while the feet of diving ducks are toward the back of their bodies. Diving ducks also have larger feet to help them swim and dive.
They really will imprint on humans ... but it's not likely
Have you heard that ducks will imprint on the first thing they see and treat it as their mother? This is true, but it's still unlikely that a mallard would imprint on a human or any other animal.
Ducks do not know and understand they are ducks when they hatch, but they learn it through the imprinting process in their early days of life. Imprinting allows ducks and other birds such as geese and turkeys to learn how they should behave and learn to recognize other animals from their species.
Mallards will imprint on their parents in the days after hatching, but it is possible they will imprint on a human or another animal if removed from their nests. And while it may sound cute to have a duck following around a human it thinks of as its parent, it's not a good thing. The imprinting process cannot be undone, so once a duck imprints on a human, it will identify with humans for its entire life.
Ducks that have imprinted on humans do not fear humans, but this doesn't mean they are friendly toward people. Because they associate with humans and don't fear them, they can be aggressive or become territorial of people like they would with other ducks.
They shouldn't eat bread
Mallards are omnivores, and they eat a wide variety of foods they find in and around the water. One thing they shouldn't eat — and wouldn't if humans didn't offer it — is bread. Human foods like bread, crackers and chips are essentially junk food for ducks, geese and other birds. These foods don't have the nutrients the ducks get from their normal diet. Too much of this junk food can cause them to develop a condition called angel wing.
Angel wing causes birds' wings to become deformed because the carpal joint does not grow correctly. In ducks and geese with angel wing, you might notice that their wings stick out from their sides rather than laying flush. In severe cases, the birds' flight feathers won't grow properly and they won't be able to fly.
A mallard's diet typically changes with the seasons. During breeding season, they eat a lot of animal foods, including worms, snails, freshwater shrimp and insect larvae. At other times of the year, they eat more seeds and aquatic vegetation. Migratory mallards can also be seen eating feed and grain from farm fields.
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