The Mallard is probably the most common duck you will see around in your local water bodies. These are dabbling ducks that dip their head under water with their feet and tails sticking out, in order to search for food.
The males have an iridescent green head, a dark brown chest with a lighter body, and a bright yellow bill.
The females are a much paler brown with darker brown streaks, a dark crown and a dark eye stripe. The female Mallards can also be identified by their purplish stripe on the wing near the tips.
The ducklings have a black eye stripe and the sides of the face are yellow. They are the cutest things you'll see waddling around.
Recently, I've had the opportunity to stand and watch this duck family of six babies swimming around with their mother. I was amazed to find a lot of similarities with human babies in that they were as playful as little kids are, and extremely mindful of the mother's quacked instructions.
This young brood spent a lot of time being curious about my camera, and kept swimming up to me, but as soon as they got too close to me for their mother's comfort, the mother quacked and they immediately fell back. However, just as human babies are sometimes too curious and don't pay heed to what the parents say, one of the six came up so close to me, that I couldn't even focus any longer, my minimum focussing distance being 1.8m on the long lens.
The other thing I noted was the level of activity of these ducklings. They did a peculiar scoot over the water's surface and chased each other around.
