This duck was spotted at a local Country Park. After failing to find it in our bird books, we concluded that it must be an Albino variant. The other ducks on the lake were mostly Mallards, so I expect this is an Albino Mallard. A few days later, we found the ducks below on a local river and eventually realised that there was a whole range of domestic ducks derived from the Mallard, for which the standard bird books are no use at all! Best advice is that the one below left is a Khaki Campbell and the two on the right are Khaki Campbell / Blue Swede crosses.

Photographs (right and above) - May 2003

Photographs (below) - December 2003

My first thought when I saw the enormous bird on the left was that the head and tail of a Mallard had been grafted onto the body of a goose!

I am advised that this is a Swedish Blue male, which might explain why here too, there were crossbreeds. .

Back onto the paler variants again, these birds were all photographed at Keyhaven.
Photographs (left and above) - April 2004

..and back to the dark side! This bird, photographed at Lymington, is a Melanistic Mallard. Apparently this type of variation occurs quite widely in nature.

Photographs - November 2005

For another bird well known for its domestic variants, click here.

Next Bird