Redhead duck - common in Alberta

As a Lower Mainlander for over 30 years, I never saw redhead ducks on my local photographic expeditions.  I had heard, on occasion, excited birders talking about photographing the odd migrant on Vancouver Island.  As I never saw them, I never took an interest in them.  Then, in the last few years, I have seen them in Alberta around Edmonton.

It turns out that redheads are found only as migrants in western BC and do not show up in any numbers until the Okanagan.  However, they are fond of pothole ponds that are distributed throughout the prairies, and this is where I have seen them.

You can tell a duck is a male redhead by the bluish bill with the black tip, the red head, golden eye, and gray back.  The females are brown overall and rather bland in colour.  They still have a black tip at the end of their bill, but it is not nearly as obvious given the dark colour of the rest of the bill fitting with the body colour.

Female redheads may use brood-parasitism as a means of raising their chicks.  They will lay their eggs in the nests of other breeding ducks and then abandon them to be cared for by others.  They still will brood their own eggs, at least some of them, and may have to do the same with eggs laid in their nests by other redheads.  Isn't that interesting?

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com