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Old 11-29-2014, 10:27 AM
barbarian barbarian is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Location: houston
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I am not real sure that is a 'black' duck. It happens, but they are rare down south. That's not the greatest picture for ID, but imo it looks like too much light brown trim around some of the feathers at the base of neck area. Here are real comparison pictures of a 'mottle' and a 'black' that I just took of the same exact areas. I killed a black duck in New Jersey years ago and have it mounted side by side with a mottle. The biggest difference in the two is the mottle has very noticeable and pronounced light brown edging on every feather. The black only has a very thin trim of light color edging and it is a very fine line. It is kind of like God used a marks-a-lot to color the mottle duck feather trim and a fine print pen to color the black duck feather edges. It really shows on the first 2 pictures of the tails. I am not positive if the next two are an illusion created by the outline on each feather, but either way you can it use to tell a significant difference in the two. The feathers on the black duck almost seem to be slightly smaller than the mottle. It's like the light brown color on the mottle is a growth extension on the dark brown portion of each feather making the feather larger or at least seem larger. It is very hard to see in the picture. It also gives the look of the mottle duck feathers being more pointed and the black duck feathers being more round except in the tail area where the opposite looks to be true. You can really notice in the 2nd set of pictures of the back/wing base area. The last set of pictures of the wing tips is not a great one because they are mounted standing up and the way the wings are tucked it is tough to get a great picture of the color spectrum, but you can tell the black duck has black trim at the base of blue.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg bdtail.jpg (74.8 KB, 456 views)
File Type: jpg mdtail.jpg (80.4 KB, 453 views)
File Type: jpg bdwingbase.jpg (66.2 KB, 453 views)
File Type: jpg mdwingbase.jpg (83.4 KB, 453 views)
File Type: jpg bdwingtip.jpg (82.5 KB, 452 views)
File Type: jpg mdwingtip.jpg (90.6 KB, 451 views)
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