Redhead
(Aythya americana)
eBird offers this desription of the Redhead: This attractive diving duck often gathers by the thousands on lakes or bays in the winter. Males have cinnamon-colored head, yellow eye, and gray body. Females are plain brown overall, a lighter blond color than scaup and Ring-necked Duck. Also note evenly rounded head shape. About the size of Greater Scaup, but slightly larger than Lesser Scaup and Ring-necked Duck—this can be helpful when they are together in mixed flocks. Best separated from Canvasback by head and bill shape and male’s darker gray body. Breeds on marshy freshwater ponds and lakes; winters in flocks on any large body of water, often mixed with other diving ducks. Dives frequently to reach submerged aquatic vegetation. All About Birds offers this basic description of the Redhead: With a gleaming cinnamon head setting off a body marked in black and business gray, adult male Redheads light up the open water of lakes and coastlines. These sociable ducks molt, migrate, and winter in sometimes-huge flocks, particularly along the Gulf Coast, where winter numbers can reach the thousands. Summers find them nesting in reedy ponds of the Great Plains and West. Female and young Redheads are uniform brown, with the same black-tipped, blue-gray bill as the male.
I saw, and photographed my first Redheads on the morning of December 31, 2022. I had driven out to the Hancock Trailhead on Canyon Lake, and spotted a number of Redheads amongst a large flock of American Coots. What a beautiful bird! Here are a few of the photos I took that morning.
“Cool Facts” About the Redhead From All About Birds:
- Many ducks lay some of their eggs in other birds’ nests (a strategy known as “brood parasitism”), but female Redheads are perhaps tops in this department. Their targets include other Redheads as well as Mallard, Canvasback, Northern Pintail, Gadwall, Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, American Wigeon—even Northern Harrier.
- Courting male Redheads perform a gymnastic “head throw” display, bending nearly in half with the neck bent far over the back until the head touches the tail. The bird then snaps its neck forward while giving a loud, catlike mee-ow call.
- Redheads are so exceptionally gregarious they’re referred to as “rafting ducks.” Sometimes they alight at hunting decoys before the hunters have finished setting them up.
- In winter much of the Redhead population forms huge flocks in two Gulf of Mexico bays that share a name, the Laguna Madre of Texas and Laguna Madre of Mexico. Flocks numbering up to 60,000 can occur, feeding on seagrass in the bays.
- The oldest known Redhead was 20 years and 7 months. It was banded in 1976 as a hatchling in Minnesota and shot in Texas in 1997.