What ducks did I see?

[blindswelledrat]

A question for you ornithologists out there:

I saw some ducks with ducklings in my mothers local park yesterday in a place where ducks don't normally live.
At first I thought the two big ducks were female mallards as they were brown and the ducklings resembled mallard ducklings.
However on closer inspection they were quite different to normal.
Firstly they were slightly smaller than mallard and whilst brown, they were a lighter colour and with a lot less darker markings. But most distinctive was a near-white fawn stripe across their eye (well leading back from their eyes almost like Cleopatra eye strip if that makes sense).
I thought they might just be a juvenile mallard but google shows no similar pictures.
Any guesses?

[NDA]

They sound like manderin ducklings

[blindswelledrat]

NDA said:

They sound like manderin ducklings

Very good shout and well recognised from a poor description.
Googling juvenile Mandarin bought up this which is very close to what I saw



The only thing which makes me slightly doubtful is that these birds were bigger than an adult mandarin. Is it common for juvenile birds to be bigger than full grown ones?

[NDA]

Mandarin ducklings have the cleopatra eye makeup - so it's almost certainly that.... Their drab plumage and general fluffiness as ducklings could make them appear bigger.

I am not a duck expert by the way!