The front part of the wings is a drab colour and the back part has a wide blue band with a narrow white bar on each side. The rear part of the back and the ends of the tail feathers are blackish in colour. A narrow white band on the neck forms a division between the glossy green of the neck and the chestnut brown of the front of the chest. The upper tail coverts are blackish green whilst the undertail coverts are a velvety black, and the pen feathers are deep green. The iris is bright blue, the beak greenish yellow, the legs orange. The drake is 63 cm. long, has a wingspan of 104 cm. (the length of each wing being 30 cm.) and a tail measuring 9 cm. in length. The hen is smaller than the drake.

Habit
Mallards prefer fresh water to saltwater. This is where they search for their food by dabbling, a process involving running their beak over the bottom to find food. Ducks feed on snails, slugs, worms, insects, crayfish and the Tubifex (a round worm that lives in the mud at the bottom of rivers). They also eat water plants, grass, duckweed, acorns, legumes and grain. These ducks feed at night; they leave their resting places (usually larger ponds or river tributaries) as the sun goes down and then enter nearby fields.

Gastronomy
Breast of duck has long been a favourite kind of meat.