faerye ,
@faerye@pie.gd avatar

I am a big fan of the tweedy elegance of Gadwalls so I’ve always wanted to see their babies.

Well, I have justified my kneejerk identification of this large family as Gadwalls, so I have now seen Gadwall ducklings! They look…like mallard ducklings, only done in watercolor instead of as cartoons. Elegant right out of the egg?

A female gadwall leads her fleet of ten very new downy ducklings through the green water of a marshy lake. She is a slim elegant duck with orange-lined bill, subtly smoky eyestripe, and brown feathers that mostly look like a female mallard’s. There’s a jauntiness to her folded wingtips, however, and a patch of cinnamon on her side that mallards simply don’t have. Her babies look much like new downy mallards, but the soft yellow of their faces is lighter, and the brown eyestripe and cheek dot are thinner and less decided. They also have sweetly orange little bills, and less brown on top of their tiny soft heads. They are almost following her in pairs, but they are so new and in such a hurry that they are all crowded up almost on top of each other, and any strict organization in rows has falllen away in favor of keeping up with Mum!
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