Onto Thursday, spent a while at WWT Welney..

Please see Norfolk October 2013 set flic.kr/s/aHsjLj8YuS

The Falcated Duck or Falcated Teal (Anas falcata) is a Gadwall-sized dabbling duck.

It breeds in eastern Asia and nests in eastern Russia, in Khabarovsk, Primorskiy, Amur, Chita, Buryatia, Irkutsk, Tuva, eastern Krasnoyarsk, south central Sakha Sakhalin, extreme northeastern North Korea and northern China, in northeastern Inner Mongolia, and northern Heilongjiang, and in northern Japan, Hokkaidō, Aomori, and the Kuril Islands.

It is widely recorded well outside its normal range, but the popularity of this beautiful duck in captivity clouds the origins of these extralimital birds.

This dabbling duck is strongly migratory and winters in much of Southeast Asia. In India: Uttar Pradesh, Bihār, Assam, eastern Haryāna. Also in northern Bangladesh, northern and central Myanmar, northern Laos to the Mekong River, northern Vietnam (from about Hanoi north), and China: Hainan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Guangxi Zhuang, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, northern Hunan, Hubei, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangsu, Shandong, southern Hebei, Shanxi, northern Shaanxi. It is gregarious outside the breeding season and will then form large flocks.

This is a species of lowland wetlands, such as water meadows or lakes, and usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing.

It nests on the ground, near water and under the cover of taller vegetation. The clutch is 6–10 eggs.

A return trip to WWT Slimbridge in Gloucestershire in mid November 2024.

A Male Northern Shoveler preening in the early morning light on the Tack Piece Lagoon.

The Northern Shoveler is my favourite Duck that we see in the UK.

The Northern Shoveler, or Shoveler, is a Dabbling Duck and is common in northern areas of Europe, Asia and North America.

The Shovelers bill has developed a comb like structure on its edges which acts like a sieve to filter out food from the water's surface.

Taken at Thornton Reservoir, Thornton, Leicestershire.

This is my third visit, the previous two I couldn't locate it.

Today myself and my grandson Harry located it quite quickly, but it was only partially visible, thanks to other duck activity it came out briefly and these and more shots were taken. It was not possible to get any closer so these are distant shots.

The garganey is a small dabbling duck. It breeds in much of Europe and western Asia, but is strictly migratory, with the entire population moving to southern Africa, India, Bangladesh and Australasia in winter.

A male mallard duck in eclipse plumage (drab colors following their molt while they are flightless but the yellow bill is a male trait only) that was swimming about and occasional dipping after a tasty morsel at the Lewis & Clark Wildlife Management Area located in the Missouri River bottoms just south of Williston, North Dakota a couple of months ago (9-22-2024). It was a rather productive morning for images and a good reminder now that there really ARE warm months in the region, for now these bodies of water and wetlands are frozen and white with the subzero temperatures and snow over the past couple of weeks. Though the mallards are common (even considered invasive species in some parts of the world), I still enjoy watching them putter about.

Stylized dabbled light "Oil painting" photo art filters with brush style strokes created from photo conversion with manual adjustments, photo of Corgi Dog captured by Adrian of www.luminouslight.com

Peaceful dabbling among Cinnamon Teals can suddenly erupt into the males chasing each other across the pond. The one in front was about to dive under to evade the one behind. It seems related to vying for attention of the females.

Garretson Pond, MLK Shoreline Regional Park, Oakland, CA

Dabbling in street photography...A quick snapshot from the passenger side of the vehicle through the windshield in downtown Victoria, Vancouver Island, BC.

At 13” in length this is our most compact dabbling duck.

Teals are small dabbling ducks. Males have chestnut coloured heads with broad green eye-patches, a spotted chest, grey flanks and a black edged yellow tail. Females are mottled brown. Both show bright green wing patches (speculum) in flight. In winter birds congregate in low-lying wetlands in the south and west of the UK

Nothing says dabbling duck like the Northern Shoveler that has a bill that is in a league of its own. The bird is often referred to as Spoonbill or Spoony for its oversized, spatulate shaped bill. Although the Shoveler is North America’s third most common duck species, I rarely have the opportunity to lay eyes on this bird, let alone from a short distance away.

One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular. Anthony Robbins

*happy dabbling bokeh wednesday*

Eurasian coot

Bläßralle

Folaga comune

Fulica atra

Parco della, Piana, Sesto Fiorentino, Tuscany, Italy

Sony 77II & Minolta 400/4.5

The mallard , dabbling duck can be found throughout the Americas, Europe and North Africa and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. The male birds or drakes have a glossy green head and are grey on wings and belly while the females called hens or ducks are a mottled brown colour all over. Adaptable to almost any wetland environment the Mallard is not only one of the most recognisable ducks , it’s also one of the most widespread. Unlike many waterfowl, mallards have benefited from human alterations to the world. They are a common sight in urban parks, lakes, ponds, and other man-made water features in the regions they inhabit, and are often tolerated or encouraged in human habitat due to their placid nature towards humans and their colourful markings.

Read more at www.wildonline.blog

The American wigeon (Anas americana), also baldpate, is a species of dabbling duck found in North America. The American wigeon is a bird of open wetlands, such as wet grassland or marshes with some taller vegetation, and usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing, which it does very readily. While on the water, wigeon often gather with feeding coots and divers, and are known to grab pieces of vegetation brought to the surface by diving water birds. For this reason, they are sometimes called "poacher" or "robber" ducks. Wigeon also commonly feed on dry land, eating waste grain in harvested fields and grazing on pasture grasses, winter wheat, clover, and lettuce.

15Challenges - Mother Nature at Her Best - 2020-01-17

The mallard is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurosiberia, 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. The male birds have a glossy green head and are grey on their wings and belly, while the females 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. The mallard is 50–65 cm long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is 81–98 cm and the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm long. It is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks, weighing 0.72–1.58 kg. Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks.

Northern shoveler dabbling in a shallow water

Beaver County

Alberta

IMG_6252_18-05-25

The light on the lake was particularly rewarding this morning.

dabbling at Ridgefield NWR, Steigerwald Unit, Vancouver, WA USA. Want to see this image on a clock? Go to Amazon.com and search 'sugar vine art bird clocks'

Blue-winged teals, with a few Mallard mixed in, are seen flying above the mud flats at Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge in Oceanville, NJ. It is a sign of the season to come. Teals and mallards are dabbling ducks, which means that they feed from the surface rather than diving for food. You can watch them as they turn tail feathers to the air with only their rear ends above the waterline. Blue winged teals are generally the first ducks to migrate south in the fall and the last to migrate north in the spring. Drakes are frequently the first to leave. Perhaps the boys head off early for some "guy time" after a summer of child rearing?

2017 Photograph, Bottoms Up--Male Northern Shovelers Dabbling (Anas clypeata, Duck Family, Anatidae), Huntley Meadows, Alexandria, Virginia, © 2017.

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I did this shot when I was first dabbling with photography :-) I cant remember the background only that it was natural and not made up..No PP then..just how it turned out :-)

The Philippine duck (Anas luzonica) is a large dabbling duck of the genus Anas. Its native name is papan. It is endemic to the Philippines.

It eats shrimp, fish, insects, and vegetation, and it frequents all types of wetlands.

Taxonomy

The Philippine duck is a dabbling duck and a member of the genus Anas. It has no subspecies and so it is monotypic. It belongs to the Pacific clade of Anas along with the koloa, the Laysan duck, the Pacific black duck, and the extinct Mariana mallard.

The scientific name comes from the Latin Anas, 'duck' and the Philippine island Luzon.

It is known in the Philippines as papan.

Description

The Philippine duck is a large conspicuous duck. It has a black crown, nape and eye stripe, with a cinnamon head and neck. The rest of its body is greyish brown with a bright green speculum. Its legs are greyish brown, and its bill is bluish-grey. The female is somewhat smaller than the male, but is otherwise the same.

Distribution and habitat

The Philippine duck is known to inhabit all of the major Philippine islands and 8 minor islands, but since the 1980s most sightings have been on Luzon and Mindanao. Long-distance vagrants have been sighted in Okinawa and Taiwan.

It is found in all types of wetlands within its range, but its preferred habitat is shallow freshwater marshland.

Conservation status

The Philippine duck is rated vulnerable on the IUCN Red List with the population estimated to be 3,300 - 6,700 mature individuals remaining. The species has experienced steep population decreases since the 1970s mainly due to hunting and habitat loss. The ducks have been heavily hunted since the 1960s with thousands being hunted a year through the late 1980s.

Habitat loss is mainly due to wetland drainage, aquaculture, mangrove destruction and fishpond creation.

The species occurs in multiple protected areas including Manleluag Spring Protected Landscape, Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, Naujan Lake National Park, Bataan National Park, Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park and Olango Island, a Ramsar wetland. However, as is with most of the Philippines enforcement from hunting is lax.

Saw this male Mallard in a pool beneath Hesketh Park's waterfall today. Now I know why they're classified as "dabbling ducks".

www.britannica.com/animal/dabbling-duck

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Details best viewed in Original Size

I photographed this Blue-Winged Teal Couple (male/drake on the left) at the Black Point Wildlife Drive section of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) located immediately north of the NASA Space complex on Florida's Atlantic Coast. The Blue-Winged Teal is a species of bird in the duck, goose, and swan family Anatidae. One of the smaller members of the dabbling duck group, it occurs in North America, where it breeds from southern Alaska to Nova Scotia, and south to northern Texas. It winters along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and south into the Caribbean islands and Central America. The Blue-Winged Teal is 16 inches (40cm) long, with a wingspan of 23 inches (58cm), and a weight of 13 ounces (370g). The adult male has a greyish blue head with a white facial crescent, a light brown body with a white patch near the rear and a black tail. The adult female is mottled brown and has a whitish area at base of bill. Both sexes have sky-blue wing coverts, a green speculum, and yellow legs. They have two molts per year and a third molt in their first year. The call of the male is a short whistle; the female's call is a soft quack.

Info above was extracted from Wikipedia.

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Mallards at the Harlem Meer of Central Park in New York City.

Mallards are large ducks with hefty bodies, rounded heads and wide, flat bills. Like many "dabbling ducks", the body is long and the tail rides high out of the water giving a blunt shape. aIn flight, their wings are broad and set back toward the rear.

Male Mallards have a dark, iridescent-green head and bright yellow bill. The gray body is sandwiched between a brown breast and black rear. Females and juveniles are mottled brown with orange-and-brown bills. Both sexes have a white-bordered, blue "speculum" patch in the wing.

Mallards are "dabbling dicks" - they feed in the water by tipping forward and grazing on underwater plants. They almost never dive. They can be very tame ducks especially in city ponds, and often group together with other Mallards and species of dabbling ducks.

--- allaboutbirds.org

'Let's have a Dabble'. The beautifully coloured photogenic plumage of the Drake Mallard ...early evening flight shot against a clear blue summer sky, West Yorkshire.

Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages ...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.

There are six hundred and twenty species of birds in the UK ...This little photogenic dabbling duck chap Mr Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) with his beautiful colours always shows up and never fails to disappoint me. The name Mallard originally referred to any wild drake.

Mallard

The expression “water off a duck’s back” is a reminder of the waterproof qualities of the feathers. They are kept waterproof by regular applications of oil from the preen gland.

Scoring a duck in cricket reflects the fact that the 0 on the score sheet resembles the shape of a duck’s egg.

Mallard remain a popular sporting bird: they can be shot inland from 1 September to 31 January.

Ducklings are almost exclusively insect eaters, only turning to a mainly vegetarian diet as they get older.

Historically, commercial duck decoys caught thousands of mallard every winter, with most of the birds caught being sent to Leadenhall Market.

A duck doesn’t feed her brood, as they are capable of finding their own food as soon as they leave the nest.

Once all the eggs have hatched the duck leads the brood away to water. They never return to the nest.

A typical clutch is from nine to 13 eggs, but as many as 18, laid by the same duck, have been recorded.

Incubation takes 27-28 days, and all the eggs hatch within the same 24-hour period.

During the summer moult the drake loses his fine feathers and looks very much like the duck.

Ducks will lay their eggs in a wide variety of sites, from grassy riverbanks to the tops of tower blocks. The downy young can survive jumps from great heights.

The mallard displays classic sexual dimorphism, which means that the drake’s plumage is quite unlike that of the duck’s.

Though they will pair up in the autumn, the drake only remains with his partner until she starts incubating, and has nothing to do with rearing the ducklings.

The Victorians knew the mallard simply as the wild duck.

Only the female, or duck, makes the familiar quacking. The drake’s call is a much softer and quieter note.

Though northern populations are migratory, European mallard rarely move south of the Mediterranean.

Mallard are widespread throughout Europe and Asia, occurring as far east as Japan, and they can also be found throughout much of North America.

Mallard are one of the few species of birds to have been successfully domesticated: the mallard is the ancestor of such breeds as the Aylesbury, Khaki Campbell, Indian Runner, Silver Appleyard and Rouen.

The mallard’s success is due to its adaptability, for it is a much at home on a town pond as it is on a Highland loch.

Both sexes become completely flightless during the summer moult.

Though generally regarded as the classic surface-feeding duck, up-ending in shallow water, they will dive for their food too if they need to. Notes Living With Birds.

Inglewood Bird San.

Calgary, Alberta

_IMG_2812_18-10-05

The mallard (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. The male birds (drakes) have a glossy green head and are grey on their wings and belly, 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. The mallard is 50–65 cm (20–26 in) long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is 81–98 cm (32–39 in) and the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm (1.7 to 2.4 in) long. It is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks, weighing 0.72–1.58 kg (1.6–3.5 lb). Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks.

The female lays eight to thirteen creamy white to greenish-buff spotless eggs, on alternate days. Incubation takes 27 to 28 days and fledging takes 50 to 60 days. The ducklings are precocial and fully capable of swimming as soon as they hatch.

The mallard is a medium-sized waterfowl species that is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks. It is 50–65 cm (20–26 in) long – of which the body makes up around two-thirds – has a wingspan of 81–98 cm (32–39 in), and weighs 0.72–1.58 kg (1.6–3.5 lb). Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 25.7 to 30.6 cm (10.1 to 12.0 in), the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm (1.7 to 2.4 in), and the tarsus is 4.1 to 4.8 cm (1.6 to 1.9 in).

The breeding male mallard is unmistakable, with a glossy bottle-green head and a white collar that demarcates the head from the purple-tinged brown breast, grey-brown wings, and a pale grey belly. The rear of the male is black, with white-bordered dark tail feathers. The bill of the male is a yellowish-orange tipped with black, with that of the female generally darker and ranging from black to mottled orange and brown. The female mallard is predominantly mottled, with each individual feather showing sharp contrast from buff to very dark brown, a coloration shared by most female dabbling ducks, and has buff cheeks, eyebrow, throat, and neck, with a darker crown and eye-stripe.

Both male and female mallards have distinct iridescent purple-blue speculum feathers edged with white, which are prominent in flight or at rest but temporarily shed during the annual summer molt. Upon hatching, the plumage of the duckling is yellow on the underside and face (with streaks by the eyes) and black on the back (with some yellow spots) all the way to the top and back of the head. Its legs and bill are also black. As it nears a month in age, the duckling's plumage starts becoming drab, looking more like the female, though more streaked, and its legs lose their dark grey coloring. Two months after hatching, the fledgling period has ended, and the duckling is now a juvenile. Between three and four months of age, the juvenile can finally begin flying, as its wings are fully developed for flight (which can be confirmed by the sight of purple speculum feathers). Its bill soon loses its dark grey coloring, and its sex can finally be distinguished visually by three factors: 1) the bill is yellow in males, but black and orange in females; 2) the breast feathers are reddish-brown in males, but brown in females; and 3) in males, the center tail feather (drake feather) is curled, but in females, the center tail feather is straight. During the final period of maturity leading up to adulthood (6–10 months of age), the plumage of female juveniles remains the same while the plumage of male juveniles gradually changes to its characteristic colors. This change in plumage also applies to adult mallard males when they transition in and out of their non-breeding eclipse plumage at the beginning and the end of the summer molting period. The adulthood age for mallards is fourteen months, and the average life expectancy is three years, but they can live to twenty.

For more information, please visit en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard

Anas bahamensis.

Patchily distributed in the Caribbean and South America, this pretty duck is unlikely to be mistaken.

For a dabbling duck, it is surprisingly fond of brackish water - even mangrove swamps and coastal lagoons are frequented.

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The mallard is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurosiberia, 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. The male birds have a glossy green head and are grey on their wings and belly, while the females 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. The mallard is 50–65 cm long, of which the body makes up around two-thirds the length. The wingspan is 81–98 cm and the bill is 4.4 to 6.1 cm long. It is often slightly heavier than most other dabbling ducks, weighing 0.72–1.58 kg. Mallards live in wetlands, eat water plants and small animals, and are social animals preferring to congregate in groups or flocks of varying sizes. This species is the main ancestor of most breeds of domesticated ducks.

The American wigeon (Anas americana) is a species of dabbling duck found in North America. The American wigeon is a bird of open wetlands, such as wet grassland or marshes with some taller vegetation, and usually feeds by dabbling for plant food or grazing, which it does very readily. While on the water, wigeon often gather with feeding coots and divers, and are known to grab pieces of vegetation brought to the surface by diving water birds. For this reason, they are sometimes called "poacher" or "robber" ducks. Wigeon also commonly feed on dry land, eating waste grain in harvested fields and grazing on pasture grasses, winter wheat, clover, and lettuce.

15Challenges - Duck/s - 2021-03-07

Dabbling in a half-tone Photoshop file where you just drag your original into the PSD. Looks legit. Halftone is best seen full resolution...on small screens it looks nasty.

Dabbling in unchartered territory - Portraiture.

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Dabbling with film to keep my hand in using a recently purchased second hand Olympus OM2 Spot/Program camera and OM 28 mm f/2.8 lens. Film developed at 'Snappy Snaps' in Birmingham and scanned at home with a Plustek OpticFilm 8200i scanner. Kodak Ektar 100 film. Taken on 14th March 2020.

A trip to WWT Slimbridge mid October. Weather was sunny intervals.

The Northern Shoveler is my favourite Duck that we see in the UK.

The Northern Shoveler, or Shoveler, is a Dabbling Duck and is common in northern areas of Europe, Asia and North America.

The Shovelers bill has developed a comb like structure on its edges which acts like a sieve to filter out food from the water's surface.

'Getting all her Ducks in a Row'. Duck Mallard with six Ducklings, Holme Valley, West Yorkshire.

(Or the reflection count...Double Duck with twelve Ducklings 😊)

Many thanks for visiting my Flickr pages ...Your visits, interest, comments and kindness to 'fave' my photos is very much appreciated, Steve.

There are six hundred and twenty species of birds in the UK ...This little photogenic dabbling duck MrsMallard (Anas platyrhynchos) always shows up and never fails to disappoint me. The name Mallard originally referred to any wild drake.

Mallard

The expression “water off a duck’s back” is a reminder of the waterproof qualities of the feathers. They are kept waterproof by regular applications of oil from the preen gland.

Scoring a duck in cricket reflects the fact that the 0 on the score sheet resembles the shape of a duck’s egg.

Mallard remain a popular sporting bird: they can be shot inland from 1 September to 31 January.

Ducklings are almost exclusively insect eaters, only turning to a mainly vegetarian diet as they get older.

Historically, commercial duck decoys caught thousands of mallard every winter, with most of the birds caught being sent to Leadenhall Market.

A duck doesn’t feed her brood, as they are capable of finding their own food as soon as they leave the nest.

Once all the eggs have hatched the duck leads the brood away to water. They never return to the nest.

A typical clutch is from nine to 13 eggs, but as many as 18, laid by the same duck, have been recorded.

Incubation takes 27-28 days, and all the eggs hatch within the same 24-hour period.

During the summer moult the drake loses his fine feathers and looks very much like the duck.

Ducks will lay their eggs in a wide variety of sites, from grassy riverbanks to the tops of tower blocks. The downy young can survive jumps from great heights.

The mallard displays classic sexual dimorphism, which means that the drake’s plumage is quite unlike that of the duck’s.

Though they will pair up in the autumn, the drake only remains with his partner until she starts incubating, and has nothing to do with rearing the ducklings.

The Victorians knew the mallard simply as the wild duck.

Only the female, or duck, makes the familiar quacking. The drake’s call is a much softer and quieter note.

Though northern populations are migratory, European mallard rarely move south of the Mediterranean.

Mallard are widespread throughout Europe and Asia, occurring as far east as Japan, and they can also be found throughout much of North America.

Mallard are one of the few species of birds to have been successfully domesticated: the mallard is the ancestor of such breeds as the Aylesbury, Khaki Campbell, Indian Runner, Silver Appleyard and Rouen.

The mallard’s success is due to its adaptability, for it is a much at home on a town pond as it is on a Highland loch.

Both sexes become completely flightless during the summer moult.

Though generally regarded as the classic surface-feeding duck, up-ending in shallow water, they will dive for their food too if they need to. Notes Living With Birds.

A week later and another trip to Slimbridge on the 1st of April.

There was a group of about eight male Northern Shovelers feeding on the Tack Piece Lagoon with some female Shovelers. Mid to late morning, one by one, they started showing off by launching into flight and flying about 30 meters and landing. They would then turn around and fly back to the group.

The Northern Shoveler is my favourite Duck that we see in the UK.

The Northern Shoveler, or Shoveler, is a Dabbling Duck and is common in northern areas of Europe, Asia and North America.

The Shovelers bill has developed a comb like structure on its edges which acts like a sieve to filter out food from the water's.

The Philippine duck (Anas luzonica) is a large dabbling duck of the genus Anas. Its native name is papan. It is endemic to the Philippines.

It eats shrimp, fish, insects, and vegetation, and it frequents all types of wetlands.

Taxonomy

The Philippine duck is a dabbling duck and a member of the genus Anas. It has no subspecies and so it is monotypic. It belongs to the Pacific clade of Anas along with the koloa, the Laysan duck, the Pacific black duck, and the extinct Mariana mallard.

The scientific name comes from the Latin Anas, 'duck' and the Philippine island Luzon.

It is known in the Philippines as papan.

Description

The Philippine duck is a large conspicuous duck. It has a black crown, nape and eye stripe, with a cinnamon head and neck. The rest of its body is greyish brown with a bright green speculum. Its legs are greyish brown, and its bill is bluish-grey. The female is somewhat smaller than the male, but is otherwise the same.

Distribution and habitat

The Philippine duck is known to inhabit all of the major Philippine islands and 8 minor islands, but since the 1980s most sightings have been on Luzon and Mindanao. Long-distance vagrants have been sighted in Okinawa and Taiwan.

It is found in all types of wetlands within its range, but its preferred habitat is shallow freshwater marshland.

Conservation status

The Philippine duck is rated vulnerable on the IUCN Red List with the population estimated to be 3,300 - 6,700 mature individuals remaining. The species has experienced steep population decreases since the 1970s mainly due to hunting and habitat loss. The ducks have been heavily hunted since the 1960s with thousands being hunted a year through the late 1980s.

Habitat loss is mainly due to wetland drainage, aquaculture, mangrove destruction and fishpond creation.

The species occurs in multiple protected areas including Manleluag Spring Protected Landscape, Mounts Iglit-Baco National Park, Naujan Lake National Park, Bataan National Park, Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park and Olango Island, a Ramsar wetland. However, as is with most of the Philippines enforcement from hunting is lax.

One of two images of dabbling Mallard Ducks seen on Bradley Lake in Frear Park, Troy, New York, USA on November 20, 2020. I've added an oil painting effect to the photos.

Dabbling in Photoshop for this mirror image of a firework.

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