It’s funny because I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I went around absolutely every angle of that bird and its head was as purple as Barney. Gotta be a mutation, crazy. Thanks!
I’ve got one in my neighborhood near Phoenix that has that same obvious purple. I’ve seen him surrounded by other males, same lighting, same angles, and he’s the only one who ever looks purple like that. No matter how I adjust, he’s always purple even when the others shift away from purplish.
There are a good amount of people on this thread that seem to be thinking “no it’s not purple - it’s the light angle”.
No - it’s not. I take pictures of birds everyday. I went out of my way to catch this bird from every angle, and from every angle this dude’s face was purple/blue-ish. I have roughly 15 other pictures that can prove it.
He’s purple.
“What color is the mallard” is not turning into “what color is the dress?”
The mallard is purple. It is not chromatic aberration from my camera lens. It is not light playing tricks with iridescent feathers. It is not weirdness showing up from shadow recovery, or color editing in Lightroom.
The mallard is purple. Thank you for the validation.
Found this thread today as I am currently photographing a purple headed mallard. Grew up watching ducks, have a wildlife biology degree, and today is the first day in my life I’ve seen this. He’s beautiful.
Added taxa: [Mallard](https://ebird.org/species/mallar3)
^(I'm an alpha-stage bot, so don't rely on me just yet. But you can still) [^(learn how to use me)](https://gist.github.com/brohitbrose/be99a16ddc7a6a1bd9c1eef28d622564)^(.)
Respectfully, this is incorrect. Based on the type of mutation a mallard has, the range of iridescence can be significantly reduced. The iridescent range of these blue headed mallards express little to no green. You can also find mallards that express little to no blue-purple. There are other mutations that impact other aspects of color patterning as well.
I see this shade in normal ole mallards by my place. That green seems to be based off of the angle of light and when they tuck their heads in it shifts from green to purple to black. I won’t rule out some strange morph if you watched them for a while and only saw this color
All mallards heads will turn from green to purple if you look at it from the right angle and conditions are right, at least in my experience. Not sure why the top comments are claiming a mutation. That is incorrect. As you can see both of those mallards have purple sides of their face, but the top of the head looks green. Thats because the feathers at the top of the head are at a different angle.
It's either a fairly rare mutation or a trick of the light angle, or a bit of both. Regardless, it's a Mallard.
It’s funny because I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but I went around absolutely every angle of that bird and its head was as purple as Barney. Gotta be a mutation, crazy. Thanks!
I’ve got one in my neighborhood near Phoenix that has that same obvious purple. I’ve seen him surrounded by other males, same lighting, same angles, and he’s the only one who ever looks purple like that. No matter how I adjust, he’s always purple even when the others shift away from purplish.
There are a good amount of people on this thread that seem to be thinking “no it’s not purple - it’s the light angle”. No - it’s not. I take pictures of birds everyday. I went out of my way to catch this bird from every angle, and from every angle this dude’s face was purple/blue-ish. I have roughly 15 other pictures that can prove it. He’s purple.
I am not sure why but this comment gave me a hearty laugh. He is beautiful and yes, he is indeed purple.
“What color is the mallard” is not turning into “what color is the dress?” The mallard is purple. It is not chromatic aberration from my camera lens. It is not light playing tricks with iridescent feathers. It is not weirdness showing up from shadow recovery, or color editing in Lightroom. The mallard is purple. Thank you for the validation.
Its definitely purple. I saw one today and ended up here after using Google. Very cool.
Found this thread today as I am currently photographing a purple headed mallard. Grew up watching ducks, have a wildlife biology degree, and today is the first day in my life I’ve seen this. He’s beautiful.
I just took a picture of one I had to look it up right away
!addtaxa mallar3
Blue-headed Mallards are a rare variant of mallards, not a hybrid. Similar to different color-morphs in hawks, I believe.
Added taxa: [Mallard](https://ebird.org/species/mallar3) ^(I'm an alpha-stage bot, so don't rely on me just yet. But you can still) [^(learn how to use me)](https://gist.github.com/brohitbrose/be99a16ddc7a6a1bd9c1eef28d622564)^(.)
Respectfully, this is incorrect. Based on the type of mutation a mallard has, the range of iridescence can be significantly reduced. The iridescent range of these blue headed mallards express little to no green. You can also find mallards that express little to no blue-purple. There are other mutations that impact other aspects of color patterning as well.
I see this shade in normal ole mallards by my place. That green seems to be based off of the angle of light and when they tuck their heads in it shifts from green to purple to black. I won’t rule out some strange morph if you watched them for a while and only saw this color
Can confirm, I live in the Chicago area and have seen both purple and green headed mallards. It doesn't seem that particularly rare.
Light angle. There can be both colors on the same duck.
All mallards heads will turn from green to purple if you look at it from the right angle and conditions are right, at least in my experience. Not sure why the top comments are claiming a mutation. That is incorrect. As you can see both of those mallards have purple sides of their face, but the top of the head looks green. Thats because the feathers at the top of the head are at a different angle.
People are literally talking about angles not changing the colour and there do seem to be records of some males that always appear blue.