Aquatic Birds

Another View Of The Odd Wood Duck

From every angle and when I lightened up colors all the way on the desktop briefly, that eye stayed brown. Pretty cool.
Update: This is a female wood duck. "Older female ducks can develop male-like plumage and color characteristics. (In birds, the chromosomal sex-determination is reversed, making the default development male. When estrogen levels are suppressed with age, that default shows up, since they're growing in their feathers every year.)" I was also informed of an iNat project that tracks this uncommon sighting, they call them intersex ducks, you can see more examples here: https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/intersex-ducks
And this is a scientific article about this with mandarin ducks as an example: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40016817 (this one goes into much more scientific detail)
Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)

white rock lakedallas texassunset baywood duckduckaquatic birdwater fowleclipse plumagenonbreeding plumageswimmingclose upunusualoddstrangeboth male and female traits