They molt it.. it grows back every year.

Well Ill be darned, I stand corrected

What was once posted as a lucky shot, turned out to be the most controversial picture posted on this forum, ha-ha. This is my fist year duck hunting so I truly thought this was a hen. On the other hand, gland to know it was a drake though.

When was it shot? I don't think any ducks right now are in color phase, So it may still be a hen. I was more lookin at how yellow the bill was..

I shot this on 10/08/2010.

Sorry guys, I knew I would be opening a can of worms with the Drake comment. First dead giveaway is the bill, it's greenish/yellowish, which says drake. Hens have a more orange bill with black mottling. Also if you look close you will see the black feathers starting to come in on the back, and the chestnut color is just starting to come in on the lower neck/chest. I didn't mean to ruffle any feathers

No apologies needed Sir, I was quite happy to learn this about early season ducks. I'm much better off for it, thats for sure. To be quite honest, I've never heard of a drake mallards head not being green, I'll be paying attention the bill more often. Thanks Again.

Hen Mallard. No doubt

It's definately an eclipse mallard drake. Eclipse is just a funky biologist word for molted coloring. The greenish tint to the bill gives it away. You get a lot of these in early season and 90 percent of the people who shoot them think "hen". Ive seen them pre and post eclipse and in between. 1st time I got a look at one in between molt I thought it was a hybrid between mallard and widgeon.

other than the fact it doesn't look very dark, i would say the bill could mean a black duck

just trying to mix things up a bit lol