Mallard - Summer Molt?

My wife and I walked the perimeter of TRNWR this past Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day, but other than a huge flock of Bushtits and a Cooper's Hawk, things were pretty slow. On the home stretch along the south canal, we came upon five Mallards. I believe they were all adult females as we had passed both a female with ducklings and a group juveniles further back.
They exhibited both interesting behavior and characteristics. Quite often one would start to flap its wings very fast, slapping the water and raising quite a raucous as seen above.

At other times they would completely dive under water for short periods instead of dabbling like a typical Mallard. I didn't get a picture of one diving, but you can see the splash aftermath of one that had just dove on the right side of the image above.

Then I noticed something else interesting, most of these birds were missing most of their primary and secondary feathers on their wings. As you can see above, the rump of this bird is not covered with its wing's primary feathers as you would typically see them.

I started taking pictures of any of the ducks that flapped it's wings in hopes of getting some good views of the condition of their feathers. The one above is missing most all of its wing feathers.

The duck above is also missing a lot of feathers, but you can see that some growing in.

Finally, there is this one. Its wings appear to be fairly filled out.
So why are there what appear to be adult Mallards without wing feathers? I had already read that many water fowl molt after breeding and for a while can be flightless. After doing a bit more research, I found that male Mallards molt shortly after breeding and take on plumage similar to a female called the eclipse phase. Females will molt a bit later after its ducklings have fledged. I believe this is the case with these birds.
I could not find any pictures on the web similar to these, so I suppose these could be juveniles that haven't fully feathered out, but since they seem to have adult plumage other than on their wings, I suspect that these are adults going through their summer molt.
I welcome comments that either agree or disagree. And don't forget to say why!

Mallard Ducklings

I'm stuck in NY. I was supposed to fly home last night, but my flight was canceled. The worst part of it is that I am going to be late for my church's Strawberry Blues Festival. It's the first year we added Blues to the fund raiser and I had set up some stage lights for it. I'm going to be late so I'm not sure how it will turn out, but I have my son and another church member helping out in my absence. Bums me out big time.
So, while I'm waiting for my flight I thought I'd see if I could catch up on some posting.
Tis the season for ducklings and goslings. I saw these Mallard ducklings with mom near the parking lot at Fernhill Wetlands last Sunday. They sure are cute!

Mallard

As the Summer progresses, I continue to see Mallards with their ducklings swimming in ponds around the area. For a while now, I've been noticing that its always the female parent that is with the ducklings. It seemed a bit strange to me, but I didn't give it much thought. However, as the weeks go by I began to realize that not only are there no males with the ducklings, there aren't any males period. Where have they gone?
The picture above was taken at Fernhill Wetland on Sunday where again I saw plenty of Mallards, but no males. So it was time to figure out what was going on. It turns out that the after breeding, the males molt and are left with coloring very close to the female. Its called their Eclipse Plumage. So, the males haven't disappeared, they are just incognito.
Based on my reading, the males should still have a clear yellow bill, so I assume the two in the image above are both female since their bill coloring is that of a female. But I will be on the lookout from now on for female looking Mallards will yellow bills. Hopefully I will see some and my missing male Mallard mystery will be solved.

Mallard

A Mallard swimming in the pond at Mentor Graphics. It had been preening its breast feathers.

Mallard

When I first entered the Rhododendron Garden, the first thing I was struck with were all the Mallards. They were everywhere and I hadn't even gotten to the water yet. This male was swimming in a shallow pool. I was not the only person taking pictures of birds that day and the Mallards were very popular since they were plentiful, beautiful and cooperative.