American Black Duck, Duck Pond, Haverford College

In Albums: nature birds

An American Black Duck, with dark brown body and yellow bill, in water, with ripples

Mar 30th, 2013, by Alex Zorach

This photo shows a male American Black Duck, in the duck pond on the campus of Haverford College, in Haverford, PA.

The American Black Duck is a close relative of the Mallard, the familiar duck with the closest association with humans. The black duck has a nearly identical shape, but the male easily distinguished by its unique solid-dark-brown (not quite black) coloration. Both male and female also can be identified by the lack of white edges along the shiny purple patch on the wing, called the speculum. Duck ponds in urban and suburban parks like the one on Haverford's campus are usually populated mostly or exclusively by Mallards.

This particular pond has enough wild area around the edge that it sometimes attracts other species of duck; some time back I encountered Hooded Mergansers there. But this bird was quite a surprise for me...it was acting quite tame, and even seemed to be "begging" for food in that it came over to the part of the pond where people often feed the ducks. My experience with this species is that it is usually much shier than mallards, and it usually keeps more of a distance from humans, and is less likely to come into areas like this at all.