Mystery duck....!

[bassist]

Cant find it in any of my books,was very tame!Possibly an escapee from somewhere...was very big.Peace.!Was sat on the flood wall at penwortham preston.Having problems uploading the pic,managed to put it in the gallery...Peace.!

[clydebirder]

It's a female domestic Mallard, it still has the basic Mallard shape and blue wing patch

Cheers, John

[bassist]

Thanx for the reply.Would you explain a bit more of what you mean by domestic !(from a birding point of view) and why the difference in colors from your ordinary mallards.Thanx & peace...!

[clydebirder]

Domesticated ducks are birds raised for meat, eggs and down. Many ducks are also kept for show, as pets or for their ornamental value. Almost all of the varieties of domesticated ducks are descended from the Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), apart from the Muscovy Duck (Cairina moschata).

Some of these ducks have been farmed for thousands of years. They aren't as popular as chickens because chickens have much more white lean meat and are easier to keep confined. This makes the price for chicken meat much lower, whereas duck is comparatively expensive.

The various breeds of domestic duck then sometimes interbreed with wild birds and various confusing colour combinations turn up to catch out the unwary.

For show purposes It's the same principal as breeding various colours of Budgie's, Gerbils, Rabbits, etc. Birds and animals with the required colour pigment are bred and interbred until they bare little resemblance to the wild stock they started from

hope this makes sense

cheers, John

[bassist]

Thanx john, for the info.......!Peace.........!Unwary..........thats me.....!Never would have thought it was a mallard..!again peace...!

[Neil Rigby]

Thanks for the information John. Very educational as usual and I'm getting to know a lot about domestic ducks, a subject I knew not a lot about!