Odd Ducks in Prospect Park

There are "countable" birds and " not countable" birds. Birders pretty much focus on "countable" birds and let the domestic ducks go by without really looking at them. Still, they're there, and some of them are great looking. This is a Cayuga Duck, which has been bred from Black Ducks. It is supposed to be good eating. No one knows how it got in the lake, but it probably didn't fly there. It was likely someone's pet. Or rejected dinner. It's been in Prospect Park lake going on two years now and I think it's been breeding with either the Mallards or the Black Ducks. I couldn't find a hybrid example today, but they're there.

Now these guys, I don't know what they are, they look like sepia prints of Mallards. The more I look around the park the  more I find. I suppose they're Mallard/domestic hybrids, but for all I know, they could be back-crosses from Mallard/Black Duck hybrids. I think the ones with the dark heads and green bills are males and the one that look more completely monotone, females.

Peculiar as these birds look, they are nothing compared to the ducks at Clove Lake Park on Staten Island. Those ducks look like the mutant survivors of a nuclear holocaust--mottled, tufted, bumpy--some are repulsive, some weirdly beautiful.