The Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) is a duck native to the Americas, from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Mexico south to Argentina and Uruguay. Feral Muscovy ducks are found in New Zealand, Australia, and in Central and Eastern Europe.
Muscovy Ducks are large, heavy-bodied ducks with long necks that can make them look like small geese. They have a fairly long bill that slopes smoothly up to the forehead. The tail is fairly long. Males are larger than females; domesticated individuals are often larger than wild.
Coots, Grebes, and Loons — AKA the “Not Ducks”
Mixed into large rafts of waterfowl on the water, you'll find some “duck-like” birds that aren't actually ducks at all. Coots, grebes, and loons each belong to different families.
Turducken is a dish consisting of a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck, further stuffed into a deboned turkey. Outside of the United States and Canada, it is known as a three-bird roast. Gooducken is an English variant, replacing turkey with goose.
There is an old saying: "If it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, then it must be a duck." However, one species of bird often mistaken for a duck because of its appearance and aquatic tendencies is actually NOT a duck. That bird is the American coot.
The platypus is a remarkable mammal found only in Australia.
Sometimes known as a duck-billed platypus, this curious mammal combines the characteristics of many different species in one.
Ducks are called drakes when they are male and females are referred to as hens. If raising backyard ducks, an ideal flock makeup might be three hens on their own, or a drake with four to five hens. Hens will lay eggs without a drake around but if you'd like some baby ducklings you'll need a male in the flock.
noun,plural fowls, (especially collectively) fowl. the domestic or barnyard hen or rooster; chicken. : Compare domestic fowl. any of several other, usually gallinaceous, birds that are barnyard, domesticated, or wild, as the duck, turkey, or pheasant.
American coots typically measure 13 to 17 inches long and weigh from 0.9 to 1.8 pounds. In appearance, they sport a short white bill and face shield and dark gray plumage. Like other birds that look like ducks, the American coot often gets mistaken for a duck.
The Wood frog chorus sounds like quacking ducks. If you're out for a walk this month, and you hear something that sounds like ducks quacking, don't expect to see ducks. The call of a male wood frog fools a lot of people.
Anatidae. The Anatidae are the biological family of birds that includes ducks, geese and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica and on most of the world's islands and island groups.
Whereas other ducks quack, Muscovy hiss. Perhaps the most distinctive Muscovy trait, though, is its face, which is fleshy, red and bumpy around the beak and eyes. “Muscovy are just not as pretty,” John Metzer, owner of Metzer Farms, says. “They have caruncle on their faces like a turkey.”
Redhead, Aythya americana
This diving duck is appropriately named and easily identified by its bright red head and gray body. The Redhead breeds in central Alaska, in the Great Plains, and locally throughout the West. It winters in open water across much of the United States and Mexico.
The most obvious character of a muscovy is the red facial skin. If your duck has a red face, it's probably a Muscovy Duck. This red skin can be quite bumpy, exaggerated, and frankly, gross, with a knob on top of the bill and lumps all over. If you see that, it's a slam dunk Muscovy Duck.
The quintessential duck's quack is the sound of the female mallard. Females often give this call in a series of 2–10 quacks that begin loudly and get softer. When courting, she may give a paired form of this quack. The male does not quack; instead he gives a quieter, rasping, one- or two-noted call.
A male duck is called a drake, a female duck — a hen, and a baby duck is a duckling.
Male ducks are called drakes and female ducks are usually referred to as, well, ducks.
This odd mallard at Duck Hollow is an “intersex hen.” She is becoming male in a process called spontaneous sex reversal (SSR). Unlike mammals whose sex chromosomes are XX in females and XY in males, female birds have WZ sex chromosomes and males have ZZ.
A male is called a drake and the female is called a duck, or in ornithology a hen.
A mother duck (called a hen) creates a shallow depression on the ground and typically pulls nearby vegetation toward her while she's sitting in the depression. Once egg-laying is finished, the mother duck plucks her own downy feathers to help line and cover the eggs.
Breeding male
Males have glossy green head, white ring on neck, brown chest, and yellow bill.
The male mallard ducks have a dark, iridescent-green head and bright yellow bil. Their body is gray which is sandwiched between a brown breast and black rear. While the females are mottled brown in coloration with orange and brown bills. Both males and females have a white-bordered, blue 'speculum' patch in their wing.