ducks identity has me stumped

I had a customer bring in a duck to have mounted that neither he nor I can identify with our 3 different manuals.It appears to be either a hen bird, juvenile or maybe eclipse bird.It has the short stumpy bill of a bufflehead, is about the size of a goldeneye and has the muted grays on the body of a goldeneye hen but the legs are black and the head is completely white.It has a dark eye and some light gray stippling on the back of the head.

Return to Bird Taxidermy Category Menu

what do the wings look like

?
j~

Where was it killed?

Like Jon said, wings should provide the data needed for identification. It could be a hen juvenile smew, or a ruddy duck, or old squaw, but it may be an aberrant goldeneye hen. Wing speculum should give it away. Location of kill would eliminate other possibilities.

I'm with cur

Sounds like an old Squaw. Bill is like Bufflehead. Was the bill pink and black with a black tip? Not too many ducks with a white head. Maybe an immature drake. 15 inch body with a 30 inch wingspan. Probably a little smaller if it is immature. Was it shot on the coast?

cur my man

I rarely have reason to call your posts into question---but a SMEW? A person with your degree of knowledge should know better than that. HE HE HE. IF the bird is the size of a goldeneye drake that would eliminate all 3 suggestions---smew, ruddy, and squaw. Smews do not fit the size nor the bill shape. Ruddys do not fit the size nor the coloration if it has a TOTALLY white head. Squaw COULD be a possibility but they do not have black legs nor do they approach the size of eyes. The possibility of it being a super old scoter hen , prob a black exsists, but not likely. Sounds like it could be a hybrid of some sort but hard to tell anything really without some photos. Heck, half of the duck hunters out there can't correctly identify the common ducks for the area let alone the oddities.

I would be willing to email a photo

I would be willing to email a photo to anyone of the wings and whole bird for i.d. purposes

I'll Take A Look

Hey birdgirl,
I'll take a look at the pic, I have seen a ton of hybrids in my day
and I have a lot of books with pics of hybrids and a lot of other birds.

pictures

I had someone call and describe what sounds similar - am just waiting for him to bring it in or give me some pictures. would love it if you could email me a few of yours. thanks

Pictures

I would love to see the pictures of the bird and the the wing extended.
Thanks
Tony Finazzo

I will thaw it out and send the pics

thank you all for helping