(First photo is the duck I’m trying to identify)
My university has a duck pond, and the only ducks I’ve seen the past few years I’ve attended have been the shiny green headed ones (mallard?) fully white ones, and speckled brown ones.
Today I saw this duck. It has white on its underside that you see well when it perches upright in the water and flaps its wings. Its head is either Creme or white but it also has dark coloratuon around the eyes that extends down the head and back.
Whats odd is I haven’t seen any of the white ducks today. Maybe they migrated because of the cold?
ABQ, New Mexico, if that matters.
I’m not sure if these are native ducks or purchased — the story I was given is that the pond used to be a parking lot, but it regularly flooded and attracted ducks, and so the uni gave up and made it a duck pond. However, people’s pets end up here all the time (the pond was never intended to have fish or turtles and yet it has several) so it could be anything really.
Maybe it’s a juvenile of one of the brown ones? Since they are a bit smaller, but the head shape is totally different so I don’t know. One of the ducks did have babies last year.