Gadwall, male

Mareca strepera

Gadwall · San Diego · 6 March 2026

A drake Gadwall on a Californian pond in winter. Gadwall are dabbling ducks of the prairie potholes and the marshes of the West, feeding at the surface on waterweed, and they winter across the southern states and down into Mexico.

The Gadwall is the duck built entirely out of understatement: no bold colour block anywhere on the male, just a fine vermiculated grey-brown all over, a black stern, and a thin dark bill. The one flash of pattern, a chestnut-and-white patch on the inner wing, only shows in flight or at rest with the wing lifted, so most sightings are of a duck that reads as plain until you look closely enough to see how precisely the grey is patterned.