Mallard
Anas platyrhynchos

Mallards are very common and will breed just about anywhere. Even wild ones are very tame and are usually quite easy to tell apart from their domesticated cousins which are normally much bigger and often very different colours. The first four pictures are of a pair nesting in a very small patch of water in the Tierpark. The last but one is a duckling, probably a few weeks old.
Click on the photos to see full-size.
 

  

  

  

These birds are 'intersex' - a female with several male characteristics. The crown is partly green and the tail feathers are curled, as in the male as well as there being the male beak pattern.
 

  

  

1-4: Tierpark, Dählhölzli, Bern, 21/04/2007.
5: River Aare, Dählhölzli, Bern, 21/04/2007.
6: Lac de Neuchâtel, 13/05/2007.
7-8: Wohlensee, Bern, 14/02/2009.
9-10: Buren-an-der-Aare, 15/03/2009.