Thursday 9 January 2020

MYSTERY DUCK FLIES IN TO CLEETHORPES


AN unusual duck is baffling visitors to Cleethorpes Boating Lake.

Many of the mallards are hybrids - mostly the result of crossbreeding with Aylesbury farmyard ducks.

But the latest bird to have flown is quite different - lacking the bottle-green head in the drakes of its  counterparts.

One theory is that it may be the outcome of cross-breeding between a mallard and an eider.

This would be unusual - the former is a freshwater species, the latter favours saltwater.

So where might the 'malleider' have flown in from? The wild or an ornamental collection?

It will probably never be known, but the bird - though mostly shunned by the other waterfowl - seems to be content in the new home in Cleethorpes.
                                                     


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