Spot a Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)

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Mallards are large ducks with hefty bodies, rounded heads, with wide, flat bills, and are an abundant resident of Balboa Park since the late 1980’s. Like many “dabbling ducks”, they feed in the water by tipping forward and grazing on underwater plants. They can be very tame ducks especially in city ponds, like Balboa Park’s Lily Pond, and often group together with other Mallards. 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. Diet and behavioral habits: Mallards have a varied diet, the majority being plant material, including seeds, stems, and roots of a vast variety of different plants, especially grasses, pondweeds, as well as, acorns.. Mallards also eat insects, crustaceans, mollusks, tadpoles, frogs, earthworms, and small fish. Nesting habits: The Mallard nest usually consists of a shallow bowl of gathered plant material, lined with down, on the ground or in a tree stump, concealed by plants or trees. Young ducklings are tended to by the female, but feed themselves and eat mostly aquatic insects.

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