Brooklyn Bird Watch: July 20
Gadwall. Scientific name: Mareca strepera
Today Brooklyn Bird Watch is featuring a Heather Wolf photo of the Gadwall. The Columbus Audubon Society says “the Gadwall is similar in size to a Mallard, but with a steeper forehead and thinner bill. The drake Gadwall appears to be gray-brown at a distance, with a white belly and black patch at the tail. Upon closer inspection, the male’s body feathers are exquisitely patterned in a fine herringbone, as if it wore a tweed jacket.”
Females are mottled shades of brown with a dark orange-black bill. They look similar to female Mallards.
The Cornell Lab describes the “dabbling” Gadwall this way. “In a world where male ducks sport gleaming patches of green, red, or blue, the Gadwall’s understated elegance can make this common duck easy to overlook. Males are intricately patterned with gray, brown, and black; females resemble female Mallards, although with a thinner, darker bill. You’ll often see these ducks in pairs through the winter, because they select their mates for the breeding season as early as late fall.”
Perhaps all that “understated elegance”, appearing to be perfectly captured in Ms. Wolf’s photo, is a disguise, a front. The Gadwall is also known to be a “pirate.” As it elegantly “dabbles” in the pond it is simultaneously waiting to steal food from other diving ducks, such as the Coot, as they resurface. By the way, a “dabbling” duck is a duck that swims on the water surface, tipping forward to feed on submerged vegetation without diving.