Waiting to bask in glory!

With sunlight ready to colour them, two pairs of Mallard Ducks trying to move away from my constant gaze of my camera lens. Belonging to the Anatidae family, these ducks migrate to many wetlands in Delhi NCR region as well during the winters. Sanjay Lake in east Delhi has a good number of mallards every winter.

The bill of a female mallard is generally darker ranging from black to mottled orange. The female mallard is predominantly mottled with each individual feather showing sharp contrast from buff to very dark brown and has buff cheeks, eyebrow, throat and neck with a darker crown and eye-stripe.

The mallards are omnivorous and very flexible in their food choice. Here one female mallard looking for some food in the water.

Male mallard has a bottle-green head and white collar which demarcates the head from the purple tinged brown breast, grey brown wings and a pale grey belly.The rear of male is black with the dark tail having white borders.

The bill of the male is a yellowish orange tipped with black.

Bothe male and female mallards have distinct iridescent purple blue speculum feathers edged with white, prominent in flight or at rest. It is strongly migratory in the northern parts of its breeding range. Although they are widely distributed across the northern and southern hemispheres.