50 Shades of Mallard

An intergenerational tale of domestic duck drama

Welcome to Owl My Children, a monthly newsletter where I recount some exciting bird moments from the past month and utilize Substack footnotes for the first time. (Sorry in advance.)

It’s happened to the best of us. On a casual lakeside walk, we pause to admire the sords¹ of mallards strutting about on land and drifting lazily on the glassy water—but wait! What is THAT? It’s so weird and patchy! It’s not the right size! I’ve never seen anything like it!

We text our birder friends, we send them grainy cell phone pics, only to get the response:

It’s a domestic mallard.

But how?? My bird guide doesn’t have photos of a mallard like this!

For Valentine’s Weekend, I’m diving into the surprisingly romantic world of domestic ducks, where I’ll unravel the mystery of the domestic mallards that live on the Muskingum University campus.

When I first started birding, this duck freaked me out. Could it be a rare hybrid? Nope: it’s a domestic mallard. (Photo by me)

What’s the deal with domestic ducks?

Domestic ducks are not usually listed in bird identification guides because they are not supposed to be part of the native bird scene. They’re ducks that are being raised for their eggs or for meat. When we see them in parks, it means they’ve either escaped or, more likely, been released (which is illegal in most states, as it’s considered to be animal abandonment, also known as “duck dumping.” But it happens a lot! Many farm supply stores sell ducklings in the spring for less than $5 a chick. What seems like a fun, spontaneous purchase can end up becoming—well, a grown-up duck.)

In the US, there are two species of domestic duck: the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and the muscovy duck (Cairina moschata). Most of us think of mallards as native species, and they are native to North America,² Europe, and Asia, but they’ve also been domesticated since 2000 BC.³ Like with breeds of dogs or cats, we now have over 80 distinct breeds of domestic duck, most of them deriving from mallards.⁴

Because wild mallards are technically the same species as domestic mallards, they can breed with each other and in turn create fertile offspring, resulting in a colorful mallard rainbow. But it gets confusing, because some of these offspring are tiny, some are large, some are white, some have tufts on the back of their heads, some are a blend of colors, and very rarely do they look like stereotypical mallards.⁵

You can identify a domestic mallard using the following guidelines from Kevin J. McGowan’s helpful article explaining domestic and hybrid ducks:

• “If your weird duck is found at a park, walking around on the grass or coming near people, it is probably a domestic duck.”

• “If your duck has large patches of white where you didn’t expect it, think domestic duck.”

Okay, enough with the nitty gritty. Let’s talk about some drama.

Part 1: Origins of the Muskie Ducks

In 2007, my sister Hannah started college at what was then known as Muskingum College (it’s now Muskingum University) in east central Ohio. It has a lovely campus set atop and between many steep hills—so steep that I remember the guide on her college tour saying the students liked to steal trays from the cafeteria to “sled” down the hills during the winter. There’s a very large pond (or a very small lake—tomato, tomahto) at the bottom of these hills, complete with a picturesque gazebo called the Spoonholder, which extends out over the water and which is known for its magical romantic properties. For example, if a couple kisses at the Spoonholder three times, they are destined to be married. True facts.

At this pond, for as long as Hannah can remember, there have always been domestic ducks. Usually there’s a pair, but sometimes there’s a trio. They usually seem to be the Pekin breed of mallard: white, large, juicy ducks. In writing this newsletter, I learned that domestic ducks have lived on this pond since Jack Hanna, the famous zookeeper / conservationist, went to school there in 1965. He kept ducks in his dorm room, and then, when the university found out, he was required to get rid of them. He released them at the pond.

When my sister first started at Muskingum, there were two white ducks. Then, sometime during her college career, a third duck joined them. This third duck was a little strange. My sister described him as “part turkey, part duck.” He had what seemed like a red gobble and brown, disheveled feathers. He hobbled around ungracefully. Students called him “the Turducken.”

I didn’t realize until this Christmas, when I asked Hannah to send me her cell phone photos of the Turducken, that I could actually identify it. It’s a muscovy duck! Amazing the perspective 15 or so years can give you.

The Muskie Ducks circa 2007-2011. Cell phone photos by Hannah.

I browsed through Facebook looking for mentions of the muscovy duck and found two comments about it in this post by Muskingum University, which shares some fun facts about “The Muskie Ducks.” One commenter fondly remembers the time his dog grabbed the muscovy duck, saying, “Dee the goose dog took the muskovy right out of the air as she was chasing geese down the hill by the power plant, I called her off so no damage to the duck, but I'll bet it shook his day up.”

A muscovy duck. (Photo by me)

My sister and parents still live in the area, and over the years I’ve enjoyed following the drama. The Turducken disappeared after a few years, and then one of the white ducks got hit by a car. Then it got replaced, either by a new duck or the original—we’ll never know. Then a third white duck arrived, and for a while they were trio. Then one of them went missing. It’s rumored that a neighborhood kid tried to bounce the duck on a trampoline, resulting in its untimely demise.

No matter what happens to the domestic mallards, the universe always rights itself. Any domestic duck-sized gaps are always filled with a new duck.

Which begs the question: Is there someone out there with a duck farm who’s bent on maintaining the legend that Jack Hanna started? I don’t know, but I do know that over the years, the domestic ducks have inspired several social media accounts, including a Twitter account that embodied a Muskie Duck and one Facebook page that made an effort to report the number of ducks on the pond every day. The account stopped posting in 2023, but there are many great photos of the domestic mallard pair (apparently named Deloris and Gerald) who inhabited the pond at that time.

Part 2: I love The Drake

Something mysterious happened in 2023. Deloris and Gerald picked up a new friend: a regular-looking mallard, presumably from the wild population that occasionally visited the pond. He was a beautiful male, also known as a drake. He wasn’t given a name, as far as I know, so I’ll refer to him now as The Drake. (Here’s a Seinfeld clip my father will appreciate.)

For years, wild mallards stopped by the pond on their daily flight paths. Sometimes they interacted with the domestic mallards, but usually both groups kept their distance—until The Drake crossed the divide. It wasn’t long before The Drake and the two domestics became a trio.

Then, in the late spring of 2024, all three ducks disappeared. We feared the worst.

My mom mentioned the missing ducks to her friend, who lives near the pond. And the friend said, “Oh, I know where they are! They’re in my yard! Every year they pretend to have a nest back there, and every year it never works.”

For so long, we had assumed that the domestic mallards were infertile; we’d never seen chicks or any breeding or nesting-like behavior. But maybe, with The Drake in the mix…?

The domestic mallards didn’t come to the pond all summer. Then, on September 8, 2024, my mom walked by the pond and texted me, saying she saw one white duck, one male mallard, and four “very ugly ducks” with “skinny heads.” All six ducks were hanging out in a pack. Two of the new arrivals were creamy brown with white necks, and two looked like female mallards except they had two thick black lines around their eyes.

The Muskie Duck Bunch. (Photos taken in December 2024 by me)

Sadly, Deloris never returned. Gerald did; he’s pictured in the top right corner above. (I assume this is Gerald because he has curly tail feathers, which is more common in males.)

Still, the new arrivals sparked much excitement. Was it possible that Deloris laid eggs before she disappeared, and Gerald and The Drake raised the four ducklings together? Were they an adorable domestic mallard + wild mallard family???

It’s a beautiful story, and it’s the story I intended to write when I first began this newsletter.

But it might not be entirely accurate.

Part 3: Another possible scenario

After reading up on domestic mallards and learning about different breeds, I’ve realized: two of the new arrivals look an awful lot like Indian runner ducks, and two look an awful lot like Rouens. (Here’s a helpful website with photos of common breeds.) They don’t seem to be a combination of wild mallard and domestic mallard.

And here’s something else that’s bothered me from the beginning: If The Drake is a wild mallard, why did he stick around as a parental figure? Wild mallard drakes leave the child-rearing to the females. What the heck was he doing? How did he overcome his instincts and become a good father?

There is a distinct possibility that The Drake ISN’T a wild mallard at all, but a domestic breed that looks like a male mallard, such as a Rouen or similar. Rouens have the same color pattern as wild mallards, but they’re bigger (for meat purposes) and brighter. And in certain pictures I’ve taken of The Drake, he looks… kinda meaty. He also swims with his neck held up pretty high, which doesn’t seem typical.

If you have domestic mallard expertise, please let us know your thoughts in the comments!

See my cell phone pic of The Drake (bottom left) and his family. Is it just me, or is his head kinda weird? He’s bigger than the Indian runner ducks, as a Rouen would be, but I don’t have any photos of him next to a wild mallard for comparison.

If The Drake is really a domestic duck, it makes sense that he would bond with the other two domestic mallards at the pond, rather than trying to become a part of a wild mallard flock. This guy doesn’t know how to be a part of the gang! He was raised on a farm! I suspect that the four new arrivals were dropped off from a similar farm.

Though the new arrivals might not be Deloris and The Drake’s offspring, I still think it’s a nice story. Six domestic mallards, abandoned by their owners, have somehow managed to find each other and form their own family unit. Every time I’ve seen them, they’ve been inseparable, sifting their bills through the water and savoring the duckweed in the shadow of the Muskingum Spoonholder.

A peaceful day with the family. (Photo by me)

Part 4: The Silver Fox

There’s one more twist, and it’s a tragic one.

This January, households across New Concord started seeing a ghostlike creature in their yards. One resident reported on Facebook that it was a wolf. My mom’s friend took a picture: it was a real-life silver fox.

I never knew that silver foxes, apart from Richard Gere, were real. Turns out, silver foxes are a variety of red fox with a genetic mutation that makes them appear silvery gray with a white-tipped tail. (Ten percent of red foxes have this mutation.)

The Muskingum silver fox was first seen during a stretch of cold, snowy weather, apparently getting closer to civilization as it searched for accessible food sources. A rumor circulated that someone saw it walking across the frozen pond. Someone else said they saw it grab the remaining white duck (Gerald).

The town was in an uproar over the safety of their beloved ducks, suggesting that the DNR remove the silver fox. Others wanted to name the fox. The New Concord Feral Cats Facebook group held a contest and chose the name Blue Ember.⁶ They have since reported on their page that there are three silver foxes in town (someone managed to get a picture of all three together), and now there’s speculation that all three may have previously been pets.⁷

As much as I enjoy the Muskie Ducks, my experience volunteering at my local wildlife rescue has taught me about the harm caused by trapping and relocating animals. Relocated animals have a very low chance of survival, since they’re often released in unknown habitats where they don’t know how to access food, water, and shelter and where other animals have already staked out their territories, which puts them in a vulnerable defensive position. What’s tricky with the silver foxes is that we don’t know if they were always living near campus or if they, too, were relocated here.

It’s possible that neither the foxes nor the ducks are “supposed to be here.” So whose side are we on? Personally, I fear for the safety of the ducks while simultaneously hoping that the silver foxes don’t come to harm. Everyone’s just trying their best to survive what has been a difficult winter.

As far as I know, the foxes are still at large, and four members of the Muskie Duck Bunch remain. (Gerald isn’t the only duck to go missing—a new arrival has disappeared, too.) But Muskie Ducks are hardy. Even after all the drama, these colorful domestic mallards can still be found pondside, where they are patiently waiting for you to feed them some lettuce.⁸

Now please check out this amazing gallery of weird domestic ducks. The ones with George Washington wigs are my favorite.

In loving memory of Deloris, Gerald, and all other Muskie Ducks come and gone,

Holly

1. There are many colorful collective nouns for groups of ducks. While a group of ducks is most commonly called a flock, there are special names for special kinds of groups. A group of mallards on land is called a sord or sorde; a group of ducks flying in a V is often called a brace; a group of ducks walking on the ground can be called a waddling; ducks floating on water can be called a paddling or a raft; and ducks working together are a team. One Reddit user suggested my favorite collective noun: Quack Pack.

2. In the US, though mallards are considered native birds, they used to be purely migratory on the East Coast and did not overwinter in any states north of Virginia. Over the years, mallards were hunted into near oblivion, and in the 1940s, two million farm-raised mallards were released into the wild to replenish the supply. In the years since, more and more domestic-raised mallards have been released. The newly reintroduced mallards don’t always know how to do wild mallard activities, and now we have year-round resident mallards across America as well as wild populations that migrate. In 2023, a study at the University of Texas-El Paso sampled 1,000 mallards on the Atlantic Flyway and learned that less than five percent of those mallards were genetically “wild.” Ducks Unlimited also launched an Ancestry.com-like program called “duckDNA” where hunters can have their mallards’ DNA tested.

3. Various sources disagree on when and where mallard domestication started. Most of the sources I’ve found posit that China is the most likely country of origin, and that domestication began somewhere between 2000 and 500 BC.

4. Only a few domestic breeds stem from the muscovy duck, which is believed to have been domesticated by indigenous peoples starting in southern Peru and moving through Central America by 950 AD.

5. For the true bird nerds out there: the offspring of a domestic mallard and a wild mallard are not usually called “hybrids” since they’re the same species, which is why, in the eBird taxonomy, they are listed as “Mallard (domestic type)” rather than “Mallard x domestic duck (hybrid).” Mallards can hybridize with other species of duck, like with American black ducks, and those do get the special “Mallard x American Black Duck (hybrid)” distinction.

6. For the record, I think the fox-naming campaign is a smart way to get the town to rally around the foxes and protect them. A similar campaign was done to protect the Philippine Eagle. It was once known as the Monkey-Eating Eagle, which made people afraid of it. A patriotic name-change—and a move to make it the national bird of the Philippines—has done wonders for conservation efforts. There’s a great documentary about it—free on Youtube!

7. This part of Ohio has a history of exotic animal releases, as in 2011 when 50 exotic animals (including lions and tigers and bears) were set loose by their owner. But that’s a story for another time.

8. Don’t feed ducks bread!