Blonde Mallards

I’m currently interested in creating a project recording Blonde/Fawn/Faded Mallards, which are female Mallards with unusually light plumage. These ducks are structurally identical to wild Mallards, and the cause of the mutation may or may not be linked to domestic integration. Blonde Mallards are very rare and unique, and are priced by hunters.

I want to track where Blonde Mallard turn up most but I don’t want the project to put the ducks in danger of being hunted. Does anyone have any ideas?

(This topic also welcomes general information on Blonde Mallards)

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You mean dilute mutations?

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Yes, dilute mutations, specifically in female Mallards.

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I believe there’s an option somewhere to make the exact location of observations visible only to project leaders. I don’t remember if it’s an option in the project tool itself, or when making an obscured observation.

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I think this is a setting that you can choose when joining a project, so for the project admin to see obscured locations the observers would have to join the project and allow for coordinates to be visible to admins. You can choose whether to make them available only for observations you add yourself, or all observations added to the project including those added by admins.

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A created the project and it’s already full of every Mallard observation on iNat. How do I make it that the project starts off empty?

You need traditional project.

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Is that under Collection Projects or Umbrella Projects?

It’s a separate category, link is under main ones, in text (on create a project page).

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How do I make people curators?

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When user joins the project you open the page of members and can add roles.

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Thank you!

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I have several photos of a blond female Mallard from 2009. She hung around with several other Mallards for a month and a half in November/December.




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Beautiful! Have you made these into observation on iNat?

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I love this! It’s very similar to a black (melanistic eastern grey squirrel) project I started for Santa Cruz.

This also reminds me that I kind of forgot about it and should totally give other people editing capabilities.

It took me a really long time since I visually went through every single squirrel picture in Santa Cruz County lol.

Worth it tho… I love weird coloring genetics :black_heart:

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You may also be interested in the Spirit Bear, a subspecies of American Black Bear found on the West Coast in BC. What makes these bears unique is their completely white coat, like that of a Polar Bear.

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Oh yes they are very cool! I’m also really into seeing leucistic red tail hawks, but am usually driving and never seem able to get photos of them :sweat_smile:

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I haven’t but I will.

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On this topic, I would really like to see some reliable resources detailing the cause of the Blond Mallard’s (and other odd Mallard’s) appearance. Some have said it’s a result of domestic integration, while other have said that it’s a natural mutation. Many Blond Mallards are constantly being shifted from one ID to the other and I would like to find on concrete answer to this subject.

Please link any resources if you know of any.

Thank you!

You can check at least some mutations here http://forum.backyardpoultry.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=7997538 where trout, blue trout and apricot being considered as dilute ones. I can’t use facebook, but if you can, there’s a group for colour mutations (with a crow on pic), it’s in a read only mode, but there were many posts about birds.