Bufflehead
May 4th, 2011
This fellow swam by on the river while I was busily photographing the parula. It was my first opportunity to photograph a Bufflehead from anything like a reasonable distance, so I took it!
The Bufflehead is a very small diving duck, closely related to the goldeneyes. It is a primarily boreal species. Its small size is an adaptation to the size of its preferred nesting location: old Northern Flicker holes. As with Wood Ducks, the new ducklings will crawl out of the nest hole and jump, sometimes from many meters up, land on the forest floor and survive the fall (somehow!), and follow their mother to water.
The male Bufflehead's claim to fame is the beautiful rainbow irridescence of his head plumage, visible only in good light.
May 4th, 2011
This fellow swam by on the river while I was busily photographing the parula. It was my first opportunity to photograph a Bufflehead from anything like a reasonable distance, so I took it!
The Bufflehead is a very small diving duck, closely related to the goldeneyes. It is a primarily boreal species. Its small size is an adaptation to the size of its preferred nesting location: old Northern Flicker holes. As with Wood Ducks, the new ducklings will crawl out of the nest hole and jump, sometimes from many meters up, land on the forest floor and survive the fall (somehow!), and follow their mother to water.
The male Bufflehead's claim to fame is the beautiful rainbow irridescence of his head plumage, visible only in good light.
| ← | → |