Month: January 2025

Dear birding-aus subscribers.   This is not a matter of species identification but of correctly identifying the reproductive stages of this duck. Books and websites indicate a ‘breeding’ colour either by words or images or both. There is considerable variation with ‘red’, ‘bright red’  and ‘reddish’  being the preferred words, while pink, roughly the colour of the underparts of a Galah, is the colour usually shown in photos and illustrations.  However, while that pink colour might be the one often seen in the field that does not mean it is properly put forward as the breeding colour.  HANZAB gives two descriptions of the breeding colour: (1) ‘bright pillar-box red’, and (2) ‘bright red (12) and glossy’ ‘when being lost red patch discolours to light orange-red’.  The HANZAB descriptions were given by people familiar with breeding Freckled Ducks  at CSIRO Gungahlin.

An assortment of red colours is shown below, although what you see will depend on your computer and monitor or phone. I found a traditional pillar-box online and photographed an Australian one at the Griffith shops, ACT.   Color 12 in the Color Guide is labelled ‘Geranium’ and is close to ‘Spectrum Red’.  According to my eye (and computer) number 12 is close to the version indicated by an arrow.  The version indicated by ‘O’ is overexposed in strong sunlight. As it happens the cover of the Color Guide seems quite Geranium, so is included as well. The ‘Red’ sequence follows the intensity scale for just one colour available in Microsoft graphics programs such as Publisher or Powerpoint.

My question.  I would like to know whether anyone has an unedited photo of a Freckled Duck bill that is red in the pillar-box or Color 12 sense.

Geoffrey