Throughout the history of medicine there has been an awareness of animal to human transmission of disease, and the etiological pathogens have been collectively described as zoonoses1. Water fowl and wild birds have been identified as reservoirs for the virus Influenza A2,3; a highly mutable and infectious pathogen that infects avian and mammalian species4. Ducks are observed in a multitude of fresh water sources including ponds, water fountains and pools where they can defecate; bacteria have been shown to be distributed through aerosols from ornamental fountains5,6 and reclaimed water dispensed through an irrigation system7. Humans may also have direct contact with ducks and their excrement through the recreational sport of duck hunting8. Ducks can also shed pathogens near chicken farms or other animals—such as pigs—that have access to outside areas. An avian influenza A virus (H7N7) epidemic in the Netherlands in 2003 thought to be initiated from a migratory water fowl resulted in the culling of 30 million poultry in an area of the country where freerange poultry farming was common9. Due to the migratory nature and unrestrained behavior of the wild duck, Aythya Americana, our study set out to investigate the bacterial microbiome of a wild duck and to identify its bacterial flora relative to the same bacterial species that have been reported to cause disease in farm animals and humans.