hybrid duck at Stearns Lake, Boulder County, Jan. 14

[Ted Floyd]

Hey, everybody.

This evening, Sat., Jan. 14, in fading light at Stearns Lake, southeastern Boulder County, Andrew Floyd and I saw a hybrid duck that I'm not certain about. In terms of gross plumage characters, it reminds me of a "Brewer's," or "Bemaculated," Duck, i.e., a Mallard x Gadwall hybrid. But the tail and bill suggest Northern Pintail parentage, and I even wonder if American Wigeon is in this bird's ancestry. The pix, below, are dark and grainy, but I imagine there's enough in there for rampant conjecture. Let the games begin!

(By the way, there are well over 1,000 Anas ducks and several thousand geese at Stearns. Arrive there a bit earlier in the day than when Andrew and I were there, and you should get great studies of the big flock. And maybe you'll find a Mexican Duck or beautiful goldeneye x merganser hybrid or something.)

Okay, here are the photos of the Stearns Lake hybrid (click on the images to enlarge):

Ted Floyd

Lafayette, Boulder County

[Matt Rodgers]

There's no doubt in my mind that this is an American wigeon hybrid...The gray/pale blue bill and green mask that a drake baldpate exhibits are palpable; what it's crossed with is more conjecture for me but I believe that it is crossed with a mallard. Perhaps the juxtaposed true mallard present in the photo is influencing me but the apparent feather coloring on the sides, wings and what appears to be a more chestnut than pinkish chest portends mallard. Also, a true drake baldpate has a "mini sprig" if you will for a tail (when compared to a Northern Pintail) and while this one features quite a long tail, it bends upward as a mallard drakes tail feathers do although not the whole way around. Just my thoughts. I've never seen such a hybrid, thank you for posting!!

Matt Rodgers

[John Jones]

I will second Matt's opinion of American Wigeon  x Mallard.

I will also point out that a great option for perusing photos of hybrid ducks or other hybrids too, is ebird's relatively new photo gallery tool: https://ebird.org/media/catalog

Using that tool, you can see what other people have posted for various hybrid combinations, and it looks like the Northern Pintail x Mallard combination should have a fully dark head for the male. The American Wigeon x Northern Pintail option only has one photo (and it appears to be a female bird), but I would be surprised if it were that combination based on the amount of dark reddish on the leading half of this bird (comparable to Mallard). I think all these other photos on ebird, in combination with the reasons that Matt has stated, point towards American Wigeon x Mallard.

Fun bird!

John Jones

Lakewood (Jefferson Co)

On Sat, Jan 14, 2017 at 11:43 PM, Matt Rodgers <mattro...@gmail.com> wrote:

There's no doubt in my mind that this is an American wigeon hybrid...The gray/pale blue bill and green mask that a drake baldpate exhibits are palpable; what it's crossed with is more conjecture for me but I believe that it is crossed with a mallard. Perhaps the juxtaposed true mallard present in the photo is influencing me but the apparent feather coloring on the sides, wings and what appears to be a more chestnut than pinkish chest portends mallard. Also, a true drake baldpate has a "mini sprig" if you will for a tail (when compared to a Northern Pintail) and while this one features quite a long tail, it bends upward as a mallard drakes tail feathers do although not the whole way around. Just my thoughts. I've never seen such a hybrid, thank you for posting!!

Matt Rodgers

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[Jack Bushong]

Hi all, 

Here are a few images that I took back in November of presumably the same bird: https://www.flickr.com/photos/145000253@N05/albums/72157675456456894

Good Birding, 

Jack Bushong,

Louisville, CO