Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS

THE SWANS, GEESE, DUCKS, AND MERGANSERS

Red-head Duck

The first group we shall consider is represented by the genus Aythya, of which the Red-head (A. americana) may be taken as a good example. It is about twenty inches long, the male having the head and upper neck bright reddish chestnut, the lower part of the neck, chest, upper part of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts black, the back, scapulars, sides, and flanks finely barred with wavy lines of black, the wing-coverts gray, while the abdomen is pure white.

The bill is pale blue tipped with black and the iris bright yellow. The Red-head is found throughout the whole of North America, breeding from Maine and California northward and coming south in winter as far as the Bahamas and middle America.

It frequents bays, lakes, and large rivers, being especially abundant in winter in the Chesapeake Bay, feeding largely on roots and leaves of Vallisneria, or wild celery, as it is called. It then becomes very fat and rivals the celebrated Canvas-back as a table bird, and is not infrequently sold under the name of its near relative, which it closely resembles. Large numbers are shot for market or caught in nets.

Several nests of this species were found by Mr. Bent in the Devil's Lake region of North Dakota. They were placed in clumps of reeds and were handsome nests, made of dead weeds, deeply hollowed and lined with broken pieces of weeds mingled with considerable white down; they were usually on masses of dead weeds built from shallow water and held in place by living reeds growing through them.

One nest contained twenty-two eggs, but this was an unusual number, twelve or fifteen being the ordinary complement. The Red-head seems to be particularly careless about laying its eggs in the nests of other Ducks, Mr. Bent finding three cases of from three to five occurring in nests of the Canvas-back, and scattered eggs were seen in nests of and crown blackish, and the bill deeper at base and larger, but otherwise they are similar. This bird is also found generally throughout North America, but nests only in the interior from Minnesota and Dakota northward to the Arctic Circle. Mr. Bent, whom we have quoted several times, found a number of their nests in the Devil's Lake region, North Dakota.

One nest containing eight eggs he describes as follows: “It was a large nest built upon a bulky mass of wet dead weeds, measuring eighteen inches by twenty inches in outside diameter, the rim being built up six inches above the water, the inner cavity being about eight inches across by four inches deep. It was lined with smaller pieces of dead reeds and a little gray down. The small patch of reeds was completely surrounded by open water about knee deep, and the nest was so well concealed in the center of it as to be invisible from the outside.”

Another nest, also in a clump of reeds and surrounded by water over knee deep,”was beautifully made of dead reeds firmly interwoven, held in place by the growing reeds about it, and sparingly lined with gray down.”The eggs are similar to those of the Red-head except that they are much darker.

In winter the Canvas-back is found from the Chesapeake Bay to the Greater Antilles, being especially abundant on the bays and marshes of the Carolina coast, where it is procured in great numbers for the northern markets. It is highly prized by epicures, although by some it is regarded as no better or even inferior to the Red-head in this respect. Many devices are resorted to to secure the birds, such as shooting from a blind, attracting them within range by means of decoys of various kinds, a blinding light used at night, and by nets set over their feeding grounds.

The two last mentioned are considered very unsportsmanlike and moreover are unlawful.

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