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Jan 1, 2007 Pt. Douglas Park Washington Co. At 1:30pm today I watched a female goldeneye that had an entirely yellow bill. It was about 300 m away, but even at that distance the bill color was obvious. Not bright yellow, rather dull yellow, but very obvious compared to several female Common Goldeneyes that it was with, none of which had more than the usual dipped-in-yellow tips to their bills. The bird was with several Common Goldeneyes, both males and females. I watched the bird for about 15 mins. and could not see any structural difference in bill shape or head shape with the COGOs. Nor did I see the wings open. In fact, my feeling was that the bill was even a bit larger, perhaps due to its brightness? Yellow-billed female Common Goldeneyes are apparently very rare, e.g. see Madge and Burn (1988 - An identification guide to the ducks, geese and swan of the world); Eadie, J. M., M. L. Mallory, and H. G. Lumsden. (1995). Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; and R. Allen 1992. Female goldeneye with yellow bill. Br. Birds 86: 669670. Hopefully, views (and photos) of this bird can be obtained at a much closer distance. Good birding and Happy New Year. Jim Eagan ------=_NextPart_84815C5ABAF209EF376268C8 Content-Type: text/html; charset=US-ASCII <HTML style="FONT-SIZE: small; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman"><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=windows-1251"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.3020" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <P> <DIV><SPAN class=authors>Jan 1, 2007</SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=authors>Pt. Douglas Park</SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=authors>Washington Co.</SPAN></DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=authors></SPAN> </DIV> <DIV><SPAN class=authors>At 1:30pm today I watched a female goldeneye that had an entirely yellow bill. It was about 300 m away, but even at that distance the bill color was obvious. Not bright yellow, rather dull yellow, but very obvious compared to several female Common Goldeneyes that it was with, none of which had more than the usual dipped-in-yellow tips to their bills. The bird was with several Common Goldeneyes, both males and females. I watched the bird for about 15 mins. and could not see any structural difference in bill shape or head shape with the COGOs. Nor did I see the wings open. In fact, my feeling was that the bill was even a bit larger, perhaps due to its brightness? Yellow-billed female Common Goldeneyes are apparently very rare, e.g. see Madge and Burn (1988 - An identification guide to the ducks, geese and swan of the world); Eadie, J. M., M. L. Mallory, and H. G. Lumsden. (1995). Common Goldeneye (<I>Bucephala clangula</I>). The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology; and </SPAN><SPAN class=authors><EM>R. Allen</EM></SPAN> 1992. Female goldeneye with yellow bill. Br. Birds 86: 669670. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hopefully, views (and photos) of this bird can be obtained at a much closer distance. Good birding and Happy New Year.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Jim</DIV> <DIV>Eagan</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><BR> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <P></P></BODY></HTML> ------=_NextPart_84815C5ABAF209EF376268C8--
