On March 16, at Round Lake Wildlife Management Area in Harrison County, Iowa, Rebecca Christoffel and I saw many ducks, but one is so special I have to report it to you. I've never seen one like it before!
In close association were three ducks, two baldpates, male and female, and a male hybrid. One parent clearly had been a baldpate, as this duck looked very like a baldpate. It was a bit bigger than its two baldpate companions. The green on the side of its head was less contained in a stripe and was an irregular, larger than normal, blotch of dark green. The bill was essentially that of a baldpate. Rather than the warm brown sides of a male baldpate, this hybrid has brown at the anterior end but the entire posterior 70% of its side at the waterline, that broad band of color, was silvery gray. This might make you suspect a mallard was the second parent, but no, not with that black pin tail! Not a full-length pin tail, not as long as it was on the drake pintails nearby, but certainly a pin tail, none the less, showing no curve as it would perhaps had a mallard been its source. So, this bird was a hybrid of baldpate x pintail. These species are both in the genus *Anas*, so it's not hard to imagine mixed offspring being fully successful, at living, at least, if not at reproducing. I've seen hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mallard x black duck hybrids on the East Coast -- another couple species in *Anas*. Pintail is *Anas acuta*, but in the case of this parent, surely its tail, or perhaps its libido, rather than its intellect, substantiated this species epithet. Andrew Williams --- Please contribute your sightings to our list; it is only as good as members make it! --- Birding channel recommendation for FRS/GMRS radio use: Primary selection; channel 5/0 , alternate selection; channel 6/0 --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Iowa Ornithologists' Union. Membership available on-line at http://www.iowabirds.org/iou/PayDues.aspx. ----- You are currently subscribed to ia-bird as: [email protected]
