Florida Mottled Duck

I llike the way the sunbeam illuminated and highlighted this beautiful Mottled Duck in an otherwise shaded area.

The mottled duck (Anas fulvigula) or mottled mallard is a medium-sized species of dabbling duck. It is intermediate in appearance between the female mallard and the American black duck. It is closely related to those species, and is sometimes erroneously considered a subspecies of the former.
There are two distinct subspecies of the mottled duck. One subspecies, the Gulf Coast mottled duck (A. f. maculosa), lives on the Gulf of Mexico coast between Alabama and Tamaulipas (Mexico); outside the breeding season, individual birds may venture as far south as Veracruz. The other, the Florida mottled duck (A. f. fulvigula), is resident in central and southern Florida and occasionally strays north to Georgia.
The adult mottled duck is 17–24 in long from head to tail with a wingspan of 23-35 in with weight of 25-40 oz.

It has a dark body, lighter head and neck, orange legs and dark eyes. Both sexes have a shiny green-blue speculum (wing patch), which is not bordered with white as with the mallard. Males and females are similar, but the male's bill is bright yellow, whereas the female's is deep to pale orange, occasionally lined with black splotches around the edges and near the base.
Mottled ducks feed by dabbling in shallow water, and grazing on land. They mainly eat plants, but also some mollusks and aquatic insects. The ducks are fairly common within their restricted range; they are resident all-year round and do not migrate.

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