Mallard duck cleans its feathers | Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 161

Hello, friends.
For this week's photo contest Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 161 @nelinoeva asked to show photos female birds.

Since I chose a mallard drake for last week's topic, now I will show you my photos of a female mallard.

About a dozen species of waterfowl live and breed on Lake Naroch. Walking along the shore of Lake Naroch, you constantly see swans, various ducks, and sometimes you can meet a great white heron. One day I noticed two mallard ducks standing on flooded tree stumps.

The birds were preening their feathers. At first I tried to photograph both birds, but very soon I realized that nothing good would come of this - the ducks preened themselves at random, if the drake stood with his head raised, then the female turned out to be “headless” and versa.

So I decided to focus my attention on the female mallard.

The camouflage color of the female mallard is less elegant than that of the drake, but it allows her to more successfully hide from enemies in the coastal reeds.

I found it interesting that when the mallard decided to scratch itself in the area of its ear, it did exactly the same thing as my dog.

Photos were taken at Lake Naroch in September 2022.
The first photo is submitted for participation in Feathered Friends - Show Me A Photo Contest Round 161 by @nelinoeva
The last photo submitted for participation in PhotoFeed Contest - Wildlife Photography Round 73 by @photofeed
Camera: Nikon 1 S1
Location: Belarus, Lake Naroch
Friends, thank you for your attention, see you soon.
Best regards @irvet