Ducks, geese, and swans · Waterfowl
Mallard
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Anas platyrhynchos
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Voice
Call
Call
Call
How to recognize it
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62 cm; male with green head and white neck ring
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Female mottled brown, no green head
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Blue‑purple wing speculum with white borders
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In flight, loud wingbeats; female call a rough "quack"
About the species
In breeding plumage the drake wears a glossy green head with a white neck ring, a chestnut breast, and a grey body. Both sexes carry a blue-purple wing patch edged in white, and the female is mottled brown with a darker eye line and pale cheeks.
Mallards feed and move in groups, dabbling in shallow water and grazing at the edge. Their voice is the familiar quack — the female gives the louder version, while the male’s call is softer and deeper — and the wings make a faint whistle in flight. They also swim up-ending to reach plants below the surface, and they walk with a rolling step on land.
They use ponds, lakes, rivers, estuaries, and city waters, as long as the water is shallow and not too fast-flowing. The diet shifts with the season, but it usually includes aquatic plants, seeds, insects, mollusks, small fish, and other small animals. In northern areas they migrate, while many urban and milder-climate populations stay through the winter.
Did you know?
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Ducklings parachute onto asphalt
Mallard ducklings fearlessly leap from a roof or tree at their mother's call, webbed feet splayed like parachutes — thick down and their tiny weight cushion the landing even on bare asphalt.
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Foster ducks learn to migrate
Eggs of non-migratory English Mallards hatched in Finland produced 116 ducklings that adopted the local population's migration, with 19 later recovered up to 2,300 km away — peer example overrode innate sedentariness.
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75 minutes on a fallen drake
In 1995, after a drake mallard struck the glass facade of a Rotterdam museum and died, a second drake mounted the corpse for a full seventy-five minutes — the first documented case of homosexual necrophilia in the species.
Where to find
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Along unfrozen pond edges and canal banks — especially by reeds and duckweed, where it feeds by tipping up and dabbling in shallow water.
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Near bridges and quiet embankments with calm water — watch for small groups calling loudly before a sudden, noisy takeoff.
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In spring, check dense riverside grass and shrub cover close to the water: a female slips out briefly to feed, then disappears back into the shelter.
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In autumn, look around broad water bodies beside open lawns — mallards often move onto the grass to pick up spilled grain and seeds at the shoreline.
