Anade real Autonomous Community of the Basque Country

The mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) reaches a body length of about 50 to 60 centimetres, a wingspan of 81 to 95 centimetres and a weight of roughly 1,000 to 1,200 grams. It is the largest native dabbling duck and the ancestral form of the domestic duck. Drakes in breeding plumage have a metallic green glossy head, a narrow white neck ring, a chestnut breast, a grey-brown body and a bright yellow bill. Females are mottled brown, providing excellent camouflage on the nest. Both sexes share the diagnostic purple-blue speculum bordered with white on the leading and trailing edges, and both show orange-red feet. In the summer eclipse plumage the drake briefly resembles the female but can still be told apart by bill colour and stronger body size.

The mallard is a highly adaptable synanthropic species. It uses almost every type of water body, from shallow pools and drainage ditches through brooks, rivers, oxbow lakes, reservoirs and fish ponds to large lakes and coastal waters. Urban park lakes, harbours and clarification ponds are also colonised, and in towns the mallard is often remarkably tame. Shallow, well-vegetated shores with reed beds, sedges or overhanging cover are preferred. Nests are usually built on the ground close to water, but also at considerable distance from water, in tree cavities, in old raptor or crow nests and even on roofs and balconies. Pair formation starts already in autumn and winter, eggs are laid from late March into April, and the clutch usually contains seven to sixteen eggs. The female alone incubates for roughly four weeks, and the precocial ducklings follow her to water shortly after hatching. Regarding migration the Central European population is largely resident or only moves locally, while breeders from Northern and Eastern Europe are short to medium-distance migrants and arrive in the DACH region from late autumn onwards, considerably reinforcing the local winter numbers. The species dabbles in shallow water and feeds on aquatic plants, seeds, grain, insects, snails, crustaceans and small fish.

In hunting terms the mallard is by far the most important quarry on the water and shapes the picture of classic duck hunting. Common methods are the evening or morning stand at the water from a camouflaged hide or natural cover, where birds are shot as they fly in or out, and flight-line or approach hunting at dusk, when mallards move in orderly fashion between daytime resting and nighttime feeding waters. Decoys are often placed on the water and supported acoustically with duck calls in order to bring incoming flights down into shotgun range. On small waters and along reed belts a flushing hunt with suitable retrieving dogs is also practised, with the dogs putting the birds up in front of the waiting guns. Camouflage of the hunter and equipment as well as discipline on the stand are decisive, because the mallard is very sharp-eyed. The mallard is listed in Annex II/A of the EU Birds Directive and is classified as quarry in all DACH states. The actual open and closed seasons are regulated in Germany under federal and state hunting law, in Austria under the regional state hunting acts and in Switzerland under the cantonal regulations. The open season currently valid for your hunting ground, together with notes on safe identification and on separation from similar species such as gadwall, teal or wigeon, can be found in the regional regulations and in the MyHunt app.