The story of the bird
The green is not green. Like the jay’s blue, the drake’s emerald head is structural colour, an iridescence that slides toward bronze and violet as he turns. Stand still at any pond and you will watch it happen.
Anas platyrhynchos is the duck the whole world pictures when it pictures a duck. The white collar, the chestnut breast, the soft grey flanks, the neat curl of black at the tail. Every domestic duck except the Muscovy descends from this one wild bird, which is why a Mallard can pair and produce young with almost anything that quacks.
He is here in stillness at the reed line, the reflection just beginning under his feet, the water held flat and pale behind him. Audubon’s ducks were rarely calm. This one is.
Drawn in the Audubon tradition, where the weight of a bird’s history is carried by the accuracy of its line.
