I was told by old timers that the "red legged" mallards were northerners that migrated and that's how you knew they were new arrivals. Seems I was wrong but after doing research seems it's confused more often than you think. But I was wrong and never afraid to admit it. I thank you guys for teaching me the right thing about them.
Have you ever heard that you can tell where a mallard is from by the color of its feet? As the story goes, the legs and feet of northern mallards are redder than their southern cohorts because low temperatures in higher latitudes cause more blood to flow to the birds’ extremities. These mallards are also thought to be larger and hardier than mallards raised in southern parts of the species’ range. Old-timers called these big, late-migrating mallards “redlegs.”
You can read the rest of article at this link
http://www.ducks.org/conservation/wa...webbed-wonders
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