Dan's Feathursday Feature: Mallard

It's cool and rainy. Again. And the same is predicted for tomorrow. I should be camping.

Growing up, our family vacations were always camp travel--mostly Michigan state parks. There was one common thread that ran through all our trips. Rain. Frequent, and in copious amounts. We were infamous. When our neighbors asked when we would be taking our summer vacation, they were not being sociable. They were marking their calendars, to plan their up-north vacations around ours.

Still today, many decades later, the smell of wet pine needles, or the sound of rain on canvas, creates in me a strange urge to huddle with friends around a smoky fire, under a sagging tarp, shivering and struggling to convince ourselves that we're having fun.

Which brings me to the Mallard. A typical camp day would start with my dad firing up the Coleman stove and brewing coffee. Then after lighting his pipe, he'd deliver his regular morning wake-up call. "Come on, the day's not getting any longer. Good weather for the ducks today!"

At that age, the only duck I knew was the Mallard. Before climbing out of my sleeping bag, I would push up on the canvas above my head to dump away the rain water that had pooled there, and I would picture flocks of Mallards singing in the rain while I pulled on my cold, wet socks. Until my college years, every time I saw a Mallard I would mumble, "We sacrificed our summer vacations for that ingrate."

I've gotten over it. I stopped harboring a grudge against the Mallard when I learned there were many more types of ducks to blame. So, to make amends of sorts, I'm honking the Mallard's horn on its behalf today.

The Mallard is everyone's duck. It's large and conspicuous, and not shy. You'll see it everywhere--even on the tiniest garden pond. In fact, the Mallard is so common that we tend to take for granted its beautiful plumage. As with many waterfowl, the female is a soft brown, but the male sports a dark brown chest, a white neck stripe and iridescent blue-green head feathers that accentuate a large orange bill. A cool purple racing stripe on the wing stands out on both males and females. A space alien visiting our parks for the first time would no doubt be captivated by the beautiful Mallard, but we earthlings have been spoiled. "Oh, it's just a Mallard," we find ourselves saying.

Well, it just so happens that you can thank the Mallard for the down in your jacket and for the Peking Duck you had in that fancy Chinese restaurant, because over the centuries it has been so easily domesticated that virtually every domestic duck is a descendent of the Mallard. It really is no exaggeration to call the Mallard "Everyone's Duck."

We can also be grateful to the Mallard for being a year-round resident of the Midwest. No running off to warmer climes for this loyal duck. As long as it can find a bit of open water, it will stick around, adding color and life to our bleak winters.

Far from grumbling about the Mallard on rainy days, I've come to learn that it is one amazing duck.

Dan's Feathursday Feature is a regular contribution to the COS blog featuring the thoughts, insights and photography of Chicago birder, Dan Lory on birds of the Chicago region.