Muscovy Duck

How to identify

Field marks

1. Male has black or dark red bare skin on the face
2. Wild form black with large white wing patches; domestic forms mostly white or mixed black and white
3. Male has a knob at the base of the bill; wild form has a black bill with pink spots
4. Wild form has black legs and feet, long claws and a broad, flat tail

Male, female and young

Male distinctly larger than female, with a short crest at the rear of the head. Female has a feathered face, no obvious knob and duller plumage. Juvenile darker, with little or no white on the wings.

Voice

Male gives a low, breathy call; female gives a soft, trilled coo.

Where and when it's recorded

Muscovy Duck has been recorded at 1,659 of the 8,171 birding hotspots we track, in 105 countries and regions.

Records by month Northern Hemisphere

Where it's recorded most

1. UTRGV BrownsvilleUnited States3,574 records
2. Piedmont ParkUnited States3,086 records
3. Plantation PreserveUnited States3,067 records

Countries and regions with the most records

United StatesCosta RicaBrazilMexicoHondurasArgentinaAustraliaSpain

eBird records via GBIF up to 2024-12-31. A record means someone listed it; more records partly mean more birders, not more birds.

About

The Muscovy duck (Cairina moschata) is a species of duck native to the Americas, from the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and Mexico south to Argentina and Uruguay. The species has been domesticated, and feral Muscovy ducks can be found locally in New Zealand, Australia, the United States, and in Central and Eastern Europe.

Excerpt from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 · authors · Read more on Wikipedia

Questions