Know Your Ducks by Hack Byard Old Pond Publishing, £4.99

My favourite duck has to be the Aylesbury. The stereotypical duck – white, with a pale pink beak and orange legs – they belong to the farmyards we picture as children. The toy farm my daughters played with was overrun with them.

The breed dates back to the 18th century, and to find a true pure-bred example is rare. Breeding them was once a cottage industry in and around Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, where they were raised for food.

In cold weather they would be kept inside the cottage and since hygiene standards were not great, the smell would have been overpowering. The ducks would have been walked the 40 or so miles to the London market to be sold to the rich. Beforehand, they were walked through a cold tar solution and then sawdust to protect their feet on the long journey. It must have been quite a sight.

The Aylesbury is one of a number of ducks in Bradford author Jack Byard’s pocket-sized book Know Your Ducks, one of a series which began with Know Your Sheep and includes books on horses, pigs and cattle. A grandfather, Jack was inspired to write his first guide, on sheep-spotting, after talking to a group of children at the school where he worked as a technician.

He was in his early 70s when his first book, Know Your Sheep, was published in 2008.

Other ducks in the book include the odd-looking Indian runner, described by one expert as ‘a bowling pin with legs and a beak.’ Known to early sailors as the penguin duck, they were introduced into Europe in the early 19th century when a sea captain brought some ashore at Whitehaven in Cumbria.

This busy duck, as its name suggests, runs everywhere, searching the grass and meadows for tasty morsels such as slugs or snails.They were originally used in the Far East to keep the rice fields free of bugs, and now some farmers in the west are breeding them for this purpose.

The funny-looking Muscovy, the petite tufted duck and the spectacularly marked harlequin are among the 44 birds featured in the book.

Each duck has a double page to itself, with one half describing its history and characteristics, and the other displaying a detailed description and photograph. Possibly the most well-known duck in the world, the mallard – there are around 127,000 breeding pairs in the UK – pops up on page 23.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who didn’t know that they can take off vertically and rise almost 11 metres with one flap of their powerful wings. Once in flight they can attain speeds of 21 metres a second.

The book contains a section ‘Duck talk, explaining duck-related terms such as drake and hen – male and female ducks.

In common with the other books in the series, Know Your Ducks is a handy size, and easy flick-through read. Great for family walks around lakes and estuaries.

Know Your Ducks is available at oldpond.com.