Strange Duck

[jdlilfan]

I unfortunately didn't get an opportunity to snap a pic of one of these birds. I was recently in Plantation, Florida and at our hotel there were the strangest and most interesting looking birds. They were some type of duck...they were mostly black with white spots and had red mostly on their faces. I have seen pictures of Muscovy ducks in the past...is this what these birds could be?

[Lori~D]

Sounds like MUscovys for sure, they are plentiful in Florida. I dont care for them -I think they are ugly. The males are bigger and ...er...."uglier",lol with more red lumps. The females have allot less on the face.

[jdlilfan]

Thanks for the reply! They almost remind me of some kind of weird looking turkey with all those red lumps!

[Lori~D]

hah, When I was a kid we called them Turkey Ducks!

[25k]

i got one as a hatchling. it was beautiful yellow and chocolate brown. thought i was its mother. and then it grew up! ahhh! what an ugly little fellow.

[Chief's Mom]

Did he look sort of like this?



If so, then yep, it's a Muscovy Duck. They have a ton of them here Down South (LA, AL, MS, FL). This little fellow is at my house every day, along with the rest of the random flock to eat the leftover Zupreem and whatever else we have. Call me weird, but I love 'em. Every single one of them is different and unique. Of course, my husband has nicknamed him 'Tumor' because of the red on his face

[Lori~D]

And that is a male.

[Chief's Mom]

Oh, I know! He has frequently been "attacking" the females around here We had to bring my best friend's two year old son in the house yesterday because he wanted to know why the two ducks kept fighting in the backyard!

[jdlilfan]

Yep! That's exactly it! Neat picture btw. There was a flock of about 3-4 that hung around our hotel.

That's not good they're fighting! I hope they didn't frighten your friend's little boy!

[Chief's Mom]

They weren't really 'fighting'...seems to be mating season around here It just looks like they're fighting because they bite at each others' necks, so that's what he thought they were doing!

Yeah, our flock consists of two Geese, that one Muscovy, two black ducks, two white ducks, and one brown and white duck. We also have some mallards around, but they hang out by themselves. Such a weird little group, as you can tell they've been breeding all together so you can't tell what type of duck each one is now except the Muscovy...like little mutt ducks !

In fact, one of the white females has laid multiple nests in my flowerbeds which I'm not extremely happy about Not because I'm not excited to see baby ducks, but because I'm going to be a nervous wreck thinking something bad might happen to them!! I can't handle the anxiety I've found three nests so far, but she is religiously sitting on the one that has 10-12 eggs in it! Of course, she couldn't sit on the one with 5 eggs! Can't wait to see what these turn out to look like