Fifty Birds of Town and City
Mallard (Anas Platyrhynchos)
One of the largest ducks, mallards range across the entire northern hemisphere,
and are probably the best known of all waterfowl, likely to set down in migration on small
pools in city parks. The mallard has also been widely domesticated or semi-domesticated.
Mallards coloration makes identification easy, and the loud quack helps identify it.
The birds breed in prairie waterholes in Canada, the Dakotas, Minnesota, and, to a
minor extent, in other northern States. They move with the great spring and fall
migrations and, adjusting easily to the presence of man, are likely to be seen in town or
city. Add the domesticated mallards that swim about in so many parks and you have
the most urbanized of the ducks that can still claim a wild heritage. They are most
abundant in the Mississippi Valley.
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