You know the green-headed males. On females, note the relatively strong eyeline compared to most other species. Mallards are our most familiar duck and the only one present all year-round in large numbers. This circumstance should be taken not as license to ignore them, but as an invitation to enjoy watching their cute, fuzzy babies from May through August.
Males have a dark rump; both sexes have little white squares in the wing (the speculum), sometimes visible. In much of Marin, gadwalls take a distant second place for ducks you might see in summer, as well as becoming abundant in winter. Breeding gadwall are an uncommon but not unheard of Bay Area phenomenon, while you can usually find a few non-breeding birds scattered around.
In a nicely lit picture, the male’s head shows a clear green eye patch, but from many angles these luminescent feathers may appear dark or colorless. The “bald” patch on the front of the forehead is a little easier to see, but also subject to variable lighting. On males, look also for the dark rump bordered by white.
One of the easiest ducks to recognize due to the extremely large (“spatulate”) bill and distinct set of colors: dark green head, white breast and rump, reddish flanks. To begin developing attentiveness to the shape of different ducks, start with female shovelers and find those shovel mouths.
Males have long necks adorned with an elegant white stripe, as well as their namesake pintail. This might be the next dabbler to practice recognizing by shape alone: the long neck is usually perceptible on both sexes.
All of the previous dabblers were sizable birds, but green-wings are the smallest of all our ducks and are dwarfed by neighboring shovelers and the like. On males, look for the pretty red-brown head with green eye patch and vertical white spur on shoulder.
Males are an unmistakable rich, dark cinnamon all over. Females can be a bit tricky, but they are bigger and bigger billed than green-winged teal, with a relatively plain face. It’s usually not an issue though: cinnamons are less common overall and they’ll often be in a pretty clear little group of males and females together. That is of course the most widely practiced method of female duck identification: identify the male next to it and call it whatever that bird is.
Notes: Uncommon in our area, but unomittably glorious. Wood ducks breed regularly at Five Brooks Pond at Point Reyes and then pop up here and there in winter. As their name suggests, they like relatively woodsy, sheltered areas and in fact nest in tree cavities. This is the only one of our dabblers not in the fairly uniform genus Anas (they’re an Aix).
