A Mallard Duck Visiting

A new Visitor - a Mallard Duck has visited the backyard for the second straight day in a row.

Donald the Duck

He has been named “Donald the Duck”, and he arrives in the early morning, has a bite to eat, waddles around the yard, eats again at the bird seeds on the ground and then flies off.

He is the second bird to arrive this summer that is not a regular backyard visitor.

The other bird is “Homer”, the White Homing Pigeon who has been showing up daily for food and water. Homer is acutally the only bird that either walks up to me or allows me to get real close to place food on his favorite feeding spots.

About Mallard Ducks

The mallard or wild duck (Anas platyrhynchos) is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, the Falkland Islands, and South Africa.

This duck belongs to the subfamily Anatinae of the waterfowl family Anatidae

Males have purple patches on their wings, while the females (hens or ducks) have mainly brown-speckled plumage.

Both sexes have an area of white-bordered black or iridescent blue feathers called a speculum on their wings; males especially tend to have blue speculum feathers.

Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes.

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