if you are working ducks and then out of nowhere some drop from the sky, those are usually the ones that are all puffed up and with bright orange legs. It be colder up there in the sky and those are the ones that are the flight ducks so technically they may not have come from Arkansas but it is likely they flew over it
Legs do change color closer to breeding season though, but if those same ducks with the bright legs stay for a day or so in the fields they will have drab legs, this is just something I am postulating and I have no proof of that, so one would ask then why are snow geese legs always ugly pink?
I looked thru that red drum link and didn't find much on the blue tail, just said something about the young ones can sometimes have a blue tail