"Blonde" Mallard

I visited Wandsworth Common this afternoon to see the cootlings: the largest ones have now started to form "frontal shields" on their heads, but these are not yet white, so just look like fleshy brown patches above their beaks. It is interesting to see how they develop from tufty little cootlings into adults!

I'll have to blip that another time though, because today there was a stunning cream-coloured mallard hen at the pond which I'd not seen before; I didn't want to miss blipping her because she was rather unusual-looking, and I don't know whether she was just visiting today, or whether she has relocated longer-term. She was partnered with a normal looking mallard drake; I hope they have ducklings!

I took quite a few photos of her, but am blipping this one because it looks less like my usual "bird on glassy water"-type shot, and looks (to me) more like an old painting with very muted tones in the background (I took this when the mallard was in the dark shade of an overhanging tree).

I'm not exactly sure how this pigmentation comes about: she might be leucistic (reduced pigmentation) or might be a hybrid (there are many different mallard hybrid forms: they hybridise with closely related white domesticated ducks, and with species even of other genera... Apparently mallards will even hybridise with Egyptian Geese, which are in a different sub-family. Nature doesn't respect human classification systems.)