Realistic duck flying over cattails, reeds, winding water, low hills, and clouds in a wetland scene

Mallard Flying Over a Cattail Wetland

A long-necked duck glides above cattails and curving marsh water, wings lifted wide against rolling hills and puffy clouds.

Free to print for personal and classroom use. This coloring page is part of the Duck collection, made for ages 8–12 and drawn in a Realistic style.

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🎨 How to color it

Color the duck with a glossy green head, chestnut breast, gray body, and bright orange bill, then use olive green for the cattails and pale blue for the winding wetland water. The wing feathers have many narrow sections, so sharpen colored pencils and shade each feather from the base toward the tip. Try a sunrise twist by blending peach into the clouds and adding a warm gold edge along the duck’s raised wings.

🔢 How this color by number works

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Find each number in the key and fill its zone: 176 zones and 12 colors, sized for adults. Tiny unnumbered slivers borrow the color of their neighbors, and the little model above shows the finished page whenever you want to check your work. More grids like this live in our color by number gallery.

Prefer classic line art? Open this drawing as a regular coloring page.

The story behind this coloring page

Jory Shares the Sky Race — Above the high wetland, wind rushed cool under Jory’s wings, smelling of mud, cattail fluff, and far-off rain. Read the full story →

Above the high wetland, wind rushed cool under Jory’s wings, smelling of mud, cattail fluff, and far-off rain. He had just invented Cloud-to-Cattail Dash: start at the cloud shaped like a loaf, swoop over three reed clumps, skim the silver bend, and shout the finish call before your feet touched water. “Whish-whoo!” Jory cried, banking hard enough to make his feathers hum.

He played faster and faster, adding rules as the marsh unrolled beneath him. A zigzag over the tallest cattails counted double. A shadow on the water was a secret bridge. Every splashy curve became part of the course, and his joy grew too large to fit in one quack.

Then the finish call came back—not from another duck, but from below: whish-whoo, whish-whoo, whish-whoo. The winding water had copied him, the reeds had shaken it onward, and little shorebirds burst up to follow the new route. Jory laughed into the bright air and called the game open to everyone. Next time you spot the lifted wings over the marsh, can you trace the shared race from cloud to cattail?