Duck ID-Mexican mallard?

Cody Williams

Cody Williams

Well-known member
My buddy shot a cool duck while we were out last week, at first glance it was a regular old hen mallard but when we got looking closer we realized that it had some pretty unique features. It was really dark for a mallard and had a drakes's yellow bill. At first I thought that it might be a wayward black duck but after some research we're 90% sure it's a drake Mexican mallard, they aren't rare but we're in northern Utah, way outside of the range that they're typically found in. This one came in with a group of mallards, so I guess he found some buddies to hang out with! As I understand it they are a subspecies of mallard that typically lives from south Texas west to southern Arizona and are mostly found in Mexico. Pretty cool, you never know what you'll end up with out in the marsh!


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Wow! Congrats on paying attention to detail. Thankfully, there isn?t a mallard-looking duck on the endangered species list.
 
Hey Cody,

Back when I lived in Utah, I shot one at Salt Creek WMA (just the other side of the Wellsvilles from you). I was puzzled, because he'd been "reeb"ing like a greenhead when he was coming in, but when I picked him up it looked like a dark susie. I started getting suspicious when I noticed the drake's bill, and then did a cloacal exam, which showed it was an adult drake. That's when it clicked for me, and I remember Mexican mallards. Good catch.

Joel
 
That crossed my mind too Carl, but from what I read online this one matched the description of a Mexican. Joel, I've hunted Salt Creek several times but I've never really figured it out, I'll usually scratch out 2 or 3 birds but I've never had a great hunt out there. I really like that whole chain of WMAs though, I hunt Public and Bear River pretty frequently! Did you ever hunt Cache Valley much?
 
Hi Cody,

I hunted it (Cutler marsh) a lot when I was at grad school at USU. After I started with the Division and moved to the front I mostly hunted the GSL WMAs. Most of my hunting at Salt Creek was before the new impoundments were started, or before the main pool was sub-divided. It was a marsh that didn't seem to show a lot of birds when I was flying swan counts, but if you were there and new enough to wait you'd catch birds coming back from field feeding up toward Tremonton.

Public was a good marsh for wigeon in the right places. I did my Master's research on Bear River (before the flood). I do miss Pacific Flyway duck seasons... (we've been frozen over here since late October).

Joel
 
Joel Huener said:
Hi Cody,

I hunted it (Cutler marsh) a lot when I was at grad school at USU. After I started with the Division and moved to the front I mostly hunted the GSL WMAs. Most of my hunting at Salt Creek was before the new impoundments were started, or before the main pool was sub-divided. It was a marsh that didn't seem to show a lot of birds when I was flying swan counts, but if you were there and new enough to wait you'd catch birds coming back from field feeding up toward Tremonton.

Public was a good marsh for wigeon in the right places. I did my Master's research on Bear River (before the flood). I do miss Pacific Flyway duck seasons... (we've been frozen over here since late October).

Joel
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We have a lot of the same stomping grounds Joel! What years were you at USU? Cutler has changed a bit in the 15 years I've been hunting it, there are a lot less islands in the east bay but it can still be a great spot on a good day. It gets a lot of pressure these days though. Public is still a good spot for wigeon in the early season. I'm sure you wouldn't recognize a lot of your old spots at BRBR, phragmites has changed the lay of the land a bit, filling in old spots but creating new ones at the same time. Was the DWR jetty on the Promontory side there when you were working at BRBR?
 
Hi Cody,

I did my master's work from 1982-84. I started as the statewide waterfowl biologist in 1984, and left for Minnesota in 1996. The GSL hit its peak level in 1987, and a lot of the facilities were underwater during those years. There was a boat launch on Promontory, and we used that to launch the airboats when banding geese (Promontory was our location to fill our quotas of sub-adult molters), but I don't remember anything like a jetty. My guess is that it came later.

I saw the beginning of the invasion by Eurasian phragmites, but for most of my time there the marshes were salt grass, Baltic rush, alkali bulrush and Olney's bulrush. Cover was low, and you could do well hunting from a coffin, since most people hadn't figured out how to hunt low cover. It looks like an entirely different situation there now. Cutler was a hardstem bulrush marsh, but didn't have much for submersed aquatics. My impression was that Cutler was a good arrival marsh, but pressure could burn it out quickly, and birds would hop over to the (Wasatch) Front.

BRMBR was all large units (~5000 acres each) when I did my work there - before the subdivision that has since taken place.

Old stomping grounds...

Joel
 
That sounds neat Joel, from talking to my father in law and some of the older hunters I know the 80's were a great time for waterfowling in Utah. My wife's family is from Tooele and when the lake came all the way up to I-80 they had some great spots that are high and dry now. Coffins are still a great way to hunt the low cover, one of my favorites in fact. I was looking at historical photos on Google Earth the other day and it's crazy how spots that used to be mud flat are now emerging mashes and constantly changing year to year. I bet the jetty that's there now is where your old launch was but extended out into the lake bed to meet the new water level.
 
Cody Williams said:
As I understand it they are a subspecies of mallard
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The current Ducks Unlimited magazine issue had a short blurb about the Mexican Duck that says the American Ornithological Society now considers the Mexican Duck to be a separate species, much like the Black Duck is. I guess its a fairly recent change in status.
 
Hey Cody, that is definitely a drake Mexican duck. Make sure you and your partner save pictures and document everything you can about the hunt. I am betting their will be a biologist or three who will be darn interested in this duck and where he was taken. Congrats.
Al
 
Al Hansen said:
Hey Cody, that is definitely a drake Mexican duck. Make sure you and your partner save pictures and document everything you can about the hunt. I am betting their will be a biologist or three who will be darn interested in this duck and where he was taken. Congrats.
Al
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Thanks Al! I will definitely do that.
 
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