American Black Duck
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The American Black Duck (Anas rubripes) is a medium-sized dabbling duck.
Description:
The adult male has a yellow bill, a dark body, lighter head and neck, orange legs and dark eyes. The adult female has a similar appearance. Both sexes have a shiny purple-blue wing patch, which is not bordered with white as with the Mallard.
Distribution / Habitat:
Their breeding habitat is lakes, ponds, rivers, marshes and other aquatic environments in eastern Canada including the Great Lakes, and the Adirondacks in the US. Black ducks interbreed regularly and extensively with Mallard ducks, to which they are closely related; some authorities consider that Black Duck is no more than a dark-plumaged race of Mallard, not a separate species at all. The behaviour and voice are the same as for Mallard.
In the past, Black Ducks and Mallards were separated by habitat, with the dark-plumaged Black Ducks having a selective advantage in shaded forest pools in eastern North America, and the lighter plumaged Mallards in the brighter, more open prairie and plains lakes. In recent times, deforestation in the east, and tree planting on the plains, has broken down this habitat separation, leading to the high levels of hybridisation now seen.
They are partially migratory and many winter in the east-central United States, especially coastal areas; some remain year-round in the Great Lakes region.
This duck is a rare vagrant to Great Britain, where, over the years, several birds have settled in and bred with the local Mallards. The resulting hybrids can present considerable identification difficulties.
Breeding / Nesting:
The eggs are a greenish buff color. They lay from 6-14 eggs, and hatch in an average of 30 days.
Diet / Feeding:
These birds feed by dabbling in shallow water, and grazing on land. They mainly eat plants, but also some molluscs and aquatic insects.
Feeding Ducks ...
We all enjoy these beautiful birds and many of us offer them food to encourage them to come over and stay around - and it works! Who doesn't like an easy meal!
However, the foods that we traditionally feed them at local ponds are utterly unsuitable for them and are likely to cause health problems down the road. Also, there may be local laws against feeding this species of bird - so it's best to check on that rather than facing consequences at a later stage.
- Click here to find out which foods to feed them that will offer the nutrition they need to survive a cold winter and remain healthy
Comparison chart showing difference from female Mallard
Copyright: Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia.org. Some information added by Avianweb.
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