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It had been so easy. Take a photo of a bird and confirm the species by downloading the photo on a bird identification app. Then along came the ducks. Didn’t need an app for the common mallard–I’ve been seeing this water bird for over half a century. But mallards will breed with other species of ducks, producing hybrid mallards like those I photographed above in Sacramento. One app said they were rare diving ducks–don’t think so. Another app said it was a hybrid mallard–look for the tail curl. unique to mallards. The tail curl sealed it for me.

I will be doing some more app comparisons, so that I can provide a fair assessment of what works best. Will post results soon. If you have a trusty bird app, please share.