tags: Redhead, Aytha americana, birds, nature, Image of the Day
[Mystery bird] Male Redhead, Aytha americana, photographed at Hermann Park, Houston, Texas. [I will identify this bird for you tomorrow]
Image: Joseph Kennedy, 22 January 2008 [larger view].
Nikon D200, Kowa 883 telescope TSN-PZ camera eyepiece 1/180s f/8.0 at 1000.0mm iso400.
Read an analysis for how to identify this species below the fold;
Rick Wright, Managing Director of WINGS Birding Tours Worldwide, writes:
Here's a puffy-headed Aythya with a uniformly reddish head -- a prominent feature that leads us directly to the correct identification. This drake Redhead shows all the standard marks: the vermiculated gray sides and back, the extensively black breast, the yellow eye. Note the exact pattern of the bill, too; hybrid pochards resulting from various combinations can look like Redheads, but (so far as we know) only a true Redhead will show the distinctive color zones of the bill: largely blue, with a broad and reasonably well-defined white band behind a completely black bill tip.
And what about head shape? The crown of a Redhead is narrow and "squeezed," the cheeks muscular, curving down into the slightly narrower neck. Compare this nearly head-on view with the recent shot of a Canvasback drake.
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Ooh, it looks like a redhead! It appears in my Collins guide, but only to show that a Swedish birder in the 1960s couldn't recognize a hybrid in Malmö.
Bird recognition by the book. :-)
Oh, yes - a lovely Redhead drake; a bird I've never seen in life, though a female has been wintering near my home for the past coupla years. Hope she brings a friend this year!
drake redhead
One of my favorite diving ducks: a drake Redhead, and a beautiful shot of him too.