>Here in Portland, the occasional flicker with yellow shafts is the
>gilded flicker (yellow shafts, but red-shafted head pattern).
>
>Are you sure your "black duck" isn't a mallard/domestic mish-mash?
>
>-Don Baccus-

Don, I wish I'd seen your comments before my just-posted reply to Katie.
The "gilded flickers" you see are surely these same intergrades that I
wrote about. "Gilded" flickers are very much restricted to the Southwest,
with no evidence of moving northward. I noted in my posting a bird just the
opposite, with red shafts and yellow-shafted head pattern).

My only comment on black duck identification to say that no domestic
mallard that I've ever seen looked just like a black duck, which, although
dull in coloration, is a fairly distinctive species.


Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound email: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416