ugly is in the eye of the beholder

There's a quaint duck pond not far from where we live.  Magnum and I walk passed it regularly on our old folks' walks.  It's where the goose families live.  It's where kids take their prom photos. It's where Meego crashed his bicycle that time he discovered the low coefficient of friction of fresh goose poop after a rain.  It's a fave little neighborhood spot as the pond also contains fish, and cute little kids go there hoping to catch one.

During one recent jaunt, we spotted this guy:

He stood out because he looks so different from the typical population of mallards - large and spotted with a red face and bumpy thing on his nose/beak.  Not being a duck expert, I wondered if he was another breed of duck or some sort of mutant.

I tried to learn about his differentness and googled "big duck" images in hopes of tracking it down.  That led mostly to...

Uhm.... no.

So I mentioned to Magnum that I couldn't yet find out the deal with that duck (which I have since learned is the term for females.  Males are drakes).  He punched something into his phone, and in a couple of seconds said,

"It's a Muscovy duck".

I looked at his phone to see a whole bunch of images similar to the big lumbering thing at the pond.

I was all, "What did you search on??"

And he said, "'Ugly duck', why what did you search on?"

"'Ugly duck didn't seem very nice, so I searched on 'big duck'"  (Note:  be careful of typos when doing a search on "Big Duck"...)

Besides, I really don't think Mr. Muscovy is ugly.  He's sort of big and badass looking really.  To me, anyways. And I learned that they make for nice pets and don't quack-quack-quack like mallards.  I wonder if he's an escapee from someone's property as Muscovies are not typically native to Colorado.

I guess we'll never know.  He's not talking.