Like a duck out of water

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Like a duck out of water.

A proverb

Mottled Duck: Have you seen this bird?

Mottled Duck: Have you seen this bird?

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Mottled Duck

The Mottled Duck (Anas fulvigula[1]) or Mottled Mallard is a medium-sized dabbling duck.

There are two distinct populations of Mottled Ducks. One population, A. fulvigula maculosa (Mottled Duck), lives on the Gulf of Mexico coast. The other, A. fulvigula fulvigula (Florida Duck) is resident in central and south Florida and occasionally strays north to Georgia.

Identification Tips:

• Length: 15 inches
• Sexes similar
• Large dabbling duck
• Yellow bill
• Pale buff brown head
• Darker brown cap and eye line
• Mottled dark brown and buff back and upperwing coverts
• Blue-green speculum with white bar along trailing edge

Similar Species:

American Black Duck is similar with broader brown edgings to upperparts and a bluer speculum. Female, immature and eclipse male Mallards always have blue speculums with white borders to both the front and rear margins. Beware of hybrid Mallard x Black Ducks that are usually paler than Black Ducks, with blue speculums and usually with white borders on one or both edges of the speculum.

Along the Gulf of Mexico coast, the Mottled Duck is one of the most frequently banded waterfowl. This is due in part to the fact that the Mottled Duck is mostly non-migratory. Approximately one out of every twenty mottled ducks is banded, making it an extremely prized and sought after bird among hunters.

Mottled Ducks feed by dabbling in shallow water, and grazing on land. They mainly eat plants, but also some mollusks and aquatic insects.

Their breeding habitat is coastal marshes.

 

 

Like a duck out of water.

A proverb

 

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