Unusual colours

My most recent visit to the Rye (local patch) provided me with some great experiences to share with you. Firstly I would like to say that the visit was actually the weekend before last, so this post is a little late. I simply had too much to talk about then, so I have left the post until now. This time of year is great for ducks as they have aready moulted and have a new, clean, colourful set of feathers. But even moulting won't change the colour of one of the ducks I saw!

I didn't see anything too incredible in terms of uncommon birds such as Herons and Kingfishers, but I saw some interesting variations of more common species. One thing I was surprised to see was a swan cygnet. I must admit that they look very cute, but I was surprised to see one at this time of year. The water was very clear that day, and it created a brilliant reflection on the water's surface. I took a pictures of it and the one that just shows the head was one of my favourites.

Some of the birds at the park really don't show themselves very well. A good example of this is the Grey Heron. It will quite often be wading right under cover of overhanging trees, so it can be very difficult to see them, despite their size. My mum does a daily run in the park and she says she sees the Heron 2-3 times every week. I guess I have just been unlucky so far with the days I have been, because I haven't seen one since I started visiting regularly. Maybe my next visit will be my lucky one. Fingers crossed for that.

To be honest though, overall I was pleased with what I saw there. As I told you in my last post I am very new to water birds so a strange, so the duck in the next picture completely baffled me. I saw it and knew that it wasn't something I had seen before. So I took a few pictures, went home and got the bird book out. Much to my surprise, no such duck was in the book. I thought that it might be a bird from another country, like the Fulvous Whistling Duck I saw on the South Coast.

But, at closer look at the photos, I noticed that the duck was very similar in shape and size to the Mallard. I then looked at my previous Mallard photos and confirmed that they were indeed of the same shape and size. It was even with a group of Mallards. So I considered that some Mallards change their plumage for the winter. I was obviously wrong here, and a bit of research found that the Mallard doesn't change its plumage this significantly.

So then I really was stuck. I wasn't sure, but I had heard of leucism before and wondered if this had anything to do with it. As Wikipedia says, "Leucism is a condition characterized by reduced pigmentation in animals." I have seen pictures and read about other people's experiences with leucistic birds. I began to convince myself that this was the explanation. It really did look strange in the crowds of other ducks.

The fantastic Birdforum helped me to my answer once again. I asked the question, "At a small river near us I spotted what I think is a Mallard, but it has strange colouring. Is it leucistic?" I posted a small picture of it too. The response was very quick and helpful and said, "Domestic mallards come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colours. That one cold be said to be leucistic, as it is lacking in stong pigment, but shows plenty of other mallard charicteristics."

While I was looking through these pictures, I was wondering if this condition, affects the bird's life in any way. I don't know if they stand out more to predators, or if the colours actually help the duck in the breeding season. It was the only white coloured duck there, but I'd love to know if anyone else has seen something like this one.

All photos taken at the Rye on 14/10/08