The Mallard is the best known and possibly most abundant wild duck in the Northern Hemisphere. The wild Mallard is the ancestor of all of our domestic ducks with the exception of the Muscovy. Mallards are known as "dabbling ducks" due to their surface feeding where they dip and dabble in the shallows of fresh and (less frequently) salt water marshes.

The breeding male is unmistakable, with a green head, black rear end and a blue speculum edged with white, obvious in flight but not usually visible at rest. Males also possess a yellow bill with a black tip, whereas females have a dark brown bill.

The females are light brown, with plumage much like most female dabbling ducks. They can be distinguished from other ducks, by the distinctive blue speculum. In non-breeding (eclipse) plumage, the drake looks more like the female.

The Mallard is a noisy species. The male has a nasal call, whereas the female has the very familiar "quack" always associated with ducks.

In mating, Mallards form pairs only until the female lays eggs, at which time she is left by the male. The clutch is 9–13 eggs which are layed about one a day and not incubated until all laying is completed. The eggs are then incubated for 27–28 days until hatching with 50–60 days to fledging. The ducklings swim and feed themselves on insects as soon as they hatch, although they stay near their mother for protection. Mallards also have rates of male-male sexual activity that are unusually high for birds. In some cases, as many as 19% of pairs in a mallard population are male-male homosexual.

A Mallard has been recorded as living for 29 years but the average life span of the mallard is more like seven to nine years. As many as half die before they reach two years of age.


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