ML329800661

Age

Not specified

Sex

Not specified

Media notes

Female Long-tailed Duck found by Brad Waggoner and here photographed by Curtis A. Marantz on 19 April 2021 at the Whitewater River delta, north end Salton Sea, Riverside County, California.

Observation details

Waggoner spotted on the water just west of the river mouth what may or may not have been the same bird that had been seen earlier in the winter at Salt Creek. We spent a short time studying this bird and I took a few photos at a distance from which I was able to get only rather mediocre images. Unexpectedly, this bird vanished shortly after we observed it, and we were unable to relocate it during the rest of our visit even though we never saw it fly off. As I recall, this bird remained at the surface the entire time that we had it under observation, so I never saw it in flight, or even to flap its wings, and I cannot recall seeing it dive. This was a medium-sized duck that had a unique shape that combined a notably stubby bill that tapered from a base of medium-depth for a duck to a blunt tip along a culmen the dipped smoothly but only slightly in the middle. The forehead was relatively steep up to a rounded peak that was above, if not slightly before the eye, from which the crown sloped weakly backward to the nape and then the back of the neck extended more steeply downward to the back. I thought this bird’s head was unremarkable in size for a duck, but the neck was short and inconspicuous, and the body sat rather low in the water. Given the distance, I was unable to discern the structure details of the closed wing, and I think the tail must have been held at the surface because I cannot now recall seeing it. I am even more confident that I never saw the belly, legs, or feet on a bird that I saw exclusively as it swam at the surface. This bird’s plumage patterns were a bit unusual for a duck. The forehead was narrowly dark up to the crown, which was more broadly blackish back to the nape, below which the back of the neck was dusky but not as dark as the cap. Contrasting sharply with the dark cap was a broad wedge of white across the face that included the lores between the bill and the eye, the area immediately surrounding the eye, and then tapering to a point as it extended back across the auriculars. Further demarcating the white on the face was a blackish region on the lower part of the auriculars that was more extensive and less like the rounded spot that I associate with Long-tailed Ducks during the winter. I thought there was at least some whitish on the neck, but the breast was blackish and what I could see of the back and closed wings were a dark sooty-brown in color and seemingly unmarked. I noted no suggestion of the pale gray scapulars that I would have associated with a male of this species. Whereas the breast appeared to be blackish, the flanks were narrowly white along the waterline below the closed wings. I cannot recall seeing the undertail coverts, the rump, or the tail. I thought the bill was slate-gray in color without any pink or any obvious markings, but the distal part may have been darker than the base. My impression was that the eyes were dark, but I could really only be confident that they were not obviously pale, and I never even saw this much of the legs or feet.

Additional species

• Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Lens

EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

ISO

320

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/2000 sec

Dimensions

1035 pixels x 688 pixels

Original file size

989.42 KB