*This story has been updated.
A local photographer thinks that Burnaby’s Mandarin duck now has an offspring patrolling local waters.
Athena Wong sent the Glacier Media some photos from Burnaby Lake show the Mandarin duck with what she called a wood duck girlfriend. The Mandarin duck is also known as Trevor, named after the Ben Kingsley character from Iron Man 3 – an actor paid to portray the villainous terrorist known as The Mandarin.
“There’s a new Mandarin duck at Burnaby Lake,” Wong writes. “I think Trevor and his wood duck girlfriend had a hybrid offspring.”
The main photo from this story shows a duck with many of the same markings as Trevor, plus a fuzzy head.
But a reader who said they are a bird expert has written in since the story first ran and said that the bird in question is not Trevor’s offspring.
“They can’t actually hybridize - it’s just a male Mandarin duck that is moulting into his breeding plumage,” wrote Mel. “He will be fancy and beautiful again in no time. Wood ducks and Mandarin ducks can’t hybridize due to chromosome differences that make it impossible.”
So there you have it.
Trevor is the rock star of Burnaby Lake, drawing in visitors and photographers from across Canada and even around the world to snap photos, but he is often elusive.
