The eye stripe on this duck is an indication of grey duck (Anas superciliosa) heritage, but the iridescent speculum on the wing is blue, a mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) trait. So is it a grey duck or a mallard? It’s impossible to tell by plumage as mallard characteristics are dominant, meaning you can have a really mallard-looking duck that’s hiding a lot of grey duck DNA. Mallard drakes transition into breeding condition earlier than grey drakes, plus they’re slightly larger than greys, so mallards tend to dominate in the dating game, and it’s a reasonable guess that there’s more mallard DNA in our mallard/grey duck hybrid population than there is grey duck DNA. My rule of thumb is that if there’s a strong eye stripe, I call it a grey duck, but if it simply looks like it didn’t remove its eyeliner properly the night before, I call it a mallard.
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