Please let me introduce myself and give some background:
Hi! I am new to this forum and this site. I've actually come across a lot of posts here while doing research on ducks and ducklings.
I don't have any ducks or other birds of my own, though I wish I could. I live in an apartment and I have allergies, too. However, I do frequent a couple of lakes where there are a lot of waterfowl there. I've been going to these lakes, off and on, for a long time. One lake I go to because I love killdeer and killdeer chicks and this was the closest place in my area to observe them. I have a blog that talks about certain individuals and their daily life.
In May, June and July I fell in love with all the little mallard ducklings that were hatched at the larger of the two lakes. There were dozens and dozens of them. I started writing about them, too, trying to follow them throughout their "ducklinghood". But, I had a lot of questions and I still have a lot to learn, so I found a lot of posts here to help me out. Not to mention, a lot of fun posts, too.
I didn't know if I should join this forum because I can't have any poultry in my apartment and didn't want to feel left out when I visited this site. But, I had some questions about ducks and I thought the people here could help me out. So, I hope you don't mind a duck-less person on this site. I feel like I'm foster mother to a lot of the babies at the lake, though. I think a good portion of them made it to at least five or six weeks old.
The question I want to ask:
One of my first questions is if anyone could tell me how old this mallard duck is? Almost all the males in this lake are in the Eclipse phase, but all of those have yellow bills. This one has a mostly green bill with some blue and orange showing through. The reason why I am asking this is that I am trying to find out if this is one of our recent ducklings (possibly the same duckling I use in my avatar) or an older duck that was recently freed from some crippling fishing wire. He does have a hurt foot, but he's in a different part of the lake than the adult duck usually is (but hasn't been seen lately).
Most of the ducklings (all of them mallard) in this lake are between 8 and 16 weeks old with a few being about 4 to 5 weeks old.
Today, when I saw him, he was doing way better than I saw him on Sunday when he couldn't walk at all. I think he's going to be OK. Ducks are regularly fed healthy food and watched over at this lake.
Hi! I am new to this forum and this site. I've actually come across a lot of posts here while doing research on ducks and ducklings.
I don't have any ducks or other birds of my own, though I wish I could. I live in an apartment and I have allergies, too. However, I do frequent a couple of lakes where there are a lot of waterfowl there. I've been going to these lakes, off and on, for a long time. One lake I go to because I love killdeer and killdeer chicks and this was the closest place in my area to observe them. I have a blog that talks about certain individuals and their daily life.
In May, June and July I fell in love with all the little mallard ducklings that were hatched at the larger of the two lakes. There were dozens and dozens of them. I started writing about them, too, trying to follow them throughout their "ducklinghood". But, I had a lot of questions and I still have a lot to learn, so I found a lot of posts here to help me out. Not to mention, a lot of fun posts, too.
I didn't know if I should join this forum because I can't have any poultry in my apartment and didn't want to feel left out when I visited this site. But, I had some questions about ducks and I thought the people here could help me out. So, I hope you don't mind a duck-less person on this site. I feel like I'm foster mother to a lot of the babies at the lake, though. I think a good portion of them made it to at least five or six weeks old.
The question I want to ask:
One of my first questions is if anyone could tell me how old this mallard duck is? Almost all the males in this lake are in the Eclipse phase, but all of those have yellow bills. This one has a mostly green bill with some blue and orange showing through. The reason why I am asking this is that I am trying to find out if this is one of our recent ducklings (possibly the same duckling I use in my avatar) or an older duck that was recently freed from some crippling fishing wire. He does have a hurt foot, but he's in a different part of the lake than the adult duck usually is (but hasn't been seen lately).
Most of the ducklings (all of them mallard) in this lake are between 8 and 16 weeks old with a few being about 4 to 5 weeks old.
Today, when I saw him, he was doing way better than I saw him on Sunday when he couldn't walk at all. I think he's going to be OK. Ducks are regularly fed healthy food and watched over at this lake.
Last edited:
