African Black Duck Anas sparsa

A species of southern and eastern Africa. So far I've only seen captive examples.

The subspecies leucostigma occurs in east Africa and is supposed to differ from the nominate form in southern Africa in having buffer upperpart barring and a pinker bill. The upperpart barring on many examples at the Macaulay Library within range of leucostigma does not seem very buff to me, but the bill does look pink in most. Therefore as these did not have pink bills, I am assuming they are the nominate subspecies sparsa. A smaller, darker race maclatchyi from Gabon has sometimes been recognised but I believe this is now treated as clinal variation within leucostigma.

captive African Black Ducks, Pensthorpe (Norfolk, UK), 9th March 2014