The mallard is the yardstick by which most waterfowlers and managers measure ducks. Like so many other matters of public opinion, this is more a result of politics than rational analysis.

The mallard hasn't always been the most abundant duck species. In 1955, the first year of the modern waterfowl surveys, the population estimate for pintails was higher than the estimate for mallards, and it's probable that these two puddle ducks regularly exchanged the title of "most abundant" when the prairie landscape was friendlier to waterfowl than it is now. Estimates of waterfowl populations were unreliable before 1955, but reports made by nineteenth century gunners along the Atlantic and Mississippi flyways leave some reason to believe that numbers of bluebills and even canvasbacks may have rivaled numbers of mallards before the assault on America's wetlands began.

When it comes to public relations, however, the mallard has no peer. The drake has a face no one could forget. Not many people recognize the rings on a ringneck or the shovel on a shoveler, but the greenhead is a bird anybody can identify.

The Ever-Popular Mallard
Nearly everybody in America has had regular encounters with mallards. While they prefer to nest in the prairie potholes of the northern heartland, greenheads breed as far north as the shore of the Bering Sea in northwestern Alaska and as far south as southern Texas, from California coast to the Chesapeake. No bird could exploit this incredible variety of habitats without being adaptable, but the mallard's flexibility is even greater than its immense range suggests.

Last September, I was chasing elk in one of Wyoming's mountain wilderness areas. I bushwhacked through a mile of dense lodgepole forest to reach a small lake and meadow, ringed with timber. Over the years, I've killed eight bulls within sight of that lake. I've watched moose browse the willow edges, listened to wolves howl from the ridge, and stepped aside as grizzlies ambled through the huckleberry. There were no elk on the meadow this year, but the lake had its usual brood of mallards, finishing the molt and preparing for migration.

These wilderness mallards offer an emphatic counterpoint to other greenheads I have known. Many years ago, I was staring out a window on the second floor of Russell Labs on the University of Wisconsin campus, thinking about fishing instead of plant taxonomy, when a fairly large bird flew around the corner of the Steenbock Library next door and hovered 10 feet from the edge of the flat roof.

It was a mallard hen. She had just finished hatching a brood on top of the library, and the just-dry ducklings were milling around on the gravel roof while their mother encouraged them to jump. It was three stories to the well-watered bluegrass slope below, and the ducklings were less than enthusiastic about the leap, but the hen insisted until, one by one, they took the plunge, flapping their tiny wings frantically and falling about as fast as ping-pong balls wrapped in down. When the last one bounced to a stop on the lawn, mama landed and led the brood in the direction of Lake Mendota. She stopped traffic when she crossed Observatory Drive with that little procession.