With the backdrop of the muddy pond water behind it, the bottle green head of the male seems almost as iridescent and stunning as a kingfisher's plumage. The mallard is the commonest of our ducks and, fairly unusually for ducks, can nest in trees when the mood takes it. Winter influx from abroad once boosted numbers to as many as 700,000 birds in this country with the average indigenous number put at 150,000 breeding pairs a few years ago. Gamekeepers also release them for hunting at various sites which complicates matters.
Mallard often fly in from Russia and elsewhere during the winter.
Seems a shame, if that's true. I've always had a soft spot for mallard ducks as they inadvertently saved me from a beating many years ago. As a boy, I used to trek through woodland which surrounded a lake brooding with almost Gothic foreboding. In the centre of this dark lake was a small wooded island upon which a modest band of cheery mallard nested each year. With little hope of successful retreat, we simply had to grin and bear our misfortune as these older boys glowered at us menacingly and spat threats.