In my haste to re-send Tim's message I screwed it up a bit. This morning the TUFTED DUCK has been among mainly LESSER SCAUP (not Redheads) near the piling cluster in the middle of the south end of Cayuga Lake. I refound it resting among about 100 Lesser Scaup about 10am south of the pilings, but shortly after I sent another text alert they became active, moved NW, and joined more feeding Lesser Scaup (mainly), about 200. Numbers of Redheads are down: I estimated 2000. I last saw the Tufted Duck at 1126am diving in fairly wavy water.
More notes on its appearance: When simply swimming with its head up the crown shape is somewhat like a Greater Scaup, being higher toward the front, then sloping a bit to the rear, but then a bit flatter on top in the rear, not dropping down in a nice smooth curve the way Greater Scaup does. If the Tufted Duck is only on the surface of the water a couple seconds between dives, the tuft is usually slicked down and invisible. The Tufted Duck's white side patch is concave at the top on the forward 2/3, unlike scaup whose white sides are broadly oval and can appear to be against black when viewed from the rear. Ring-necked Duck's side patch has a more extremely curved top edge, and of course it is mainly gray with a white outline and a white vertical stripe in front, although it can appear whitish in some lighting and angles. Although the head shape of a sleeping Tufted Duck is similar to Lesser Scaup or Ring-necked Duck, it is not like them when it is awake. --Dave Nutter On Jan 20, 2015, at 08:36 AM, Dave Nutter <nutter.d...@me.com> wrote: > Although I don't know of the TUFTED DUCK being seen Monday, I just got a Rare > Bird Alert from Tim Lenz that it is among active REDHEADS near the piling > cluster. > -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
