Today’s post comes with some sadness as a member of the extended Intrigued family was laid to rest this afternoon. From wonderful stories learned and the good people that surrounds her, clearly she had a far reaching impact and will be truly missed by all. With deepest sympathies to the family, relatives and friends.
As you can tell from the post output as of late, I am still trying to recover from last weekend’s run. Getting antsy as sitting around (technically in this case, laying around) isn’t my thing and Linda knows all too well that a non-running Bri starts to get the crazies – NOBODY WANTS THAT! For now, trying to get through while doing my best to get ahead of the monthly quota for a change. Honestly, a bit of a win-win for all of us ha. Last post I brought you the Redhead Duck, If you recall, I mentioned with one possible exception, that species is pretty distinguishable in the field. At the time I was thinking the Canvasback Duck could cause some confusion. B. across the pond (link here), pointed out their Pochards are similarly colored and after some research on this UK Duck, I can absolutely confirm, not only similar, but basically doppelgangers. Fortunately for us, the two species do not overlap that much. For those Stateside, thought I would go ahead and cover the one we might have difficulties with.
Hit the jump to see a few more shots of the Canvasback and a bit of a discussion on the similarities and differences between them and Redheads.
Let’s start with the similarities. Well, they are both Ducks (did I mention I was college educated hehehe). Just setting expectations, don’t want you wasting your time looking in the trees or out in the middle of prairies. As you can tell, they chose a similar color palette consisting of rich cinnamon/reds, blacks on the chest and rear with shades of gray/white making up the real estate in between. They also have very bright and distinguishable eyes fit for a good scare this Halloween season.
There are some subtle differences in that set that can help guide you one way or another precluding an assessment of the shape – which we will cover next. The Redheads tend to have a “brighter” richness to their head coloring that is more consistent across the head. Canvasbacks carry the darker tone of their bill up between their eyes to the top of their heads which almost gives their neck a bookend effect with the dark tones on the front of their breast.
That darker tone also highlights the red eye hue verses the orange-yellow of the Redhead. The bill on the Redhead is predominantly slate grey where the Canvas has an all black bill. Forgot to mention, I am focusing on the drakes for this discussion – the females are much easier to distinguish even though they are both adorned in the common female browns. To round out the color discussion, the Canvas has a lighter coloring and less “ticking” in their back feathering. The bill and back differences can get a bit lost depending on the distance you are away from the subject and whether the light is distorting those features.
Lucky for us, there is a pretty easy way to tell them apart in the field and that involves assessing the shape of the profile. I suspect you have already been screaming at your monitor about how different their heads look. If I just jumped right to the dessert you wouldn’t appreciate the journey and we all know you can’t “have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat”. Just a little background on the heavy reference of that lyric here at Intrigued – The Wall was the first album I ever bought with my hard earned pennies and I listened to it every single day through high school and into college assuredly making me the well adjusted human being I am today…or not ha.
So we are at dessert and the chef has brought us a fine piece of Black Forest pie to complete our full-“course” Duck dinner. It is this finishing touch that will forever stick in your mind while out in the field trying to distinguish the Canvasback from the Redhead. The Canvas has a head and bill profile similar to this piece of delicious pie – wedge shaped, dark like the chocolate body with a red eye like the cherry on top. If you need to, you can accuse the chef of burning the crust if you want to complete the cinnamon coloring (don’t tell the chef though, he has some very sharp knives).
The Redhead and the Canvasback both cover large swathes across the US and down into Central America so there are likely chances you will see them hanging out in the same waters. In fact, both this specimen and the Redhead were found trolling the pond Sunset Park in Las Vegas. Both like to head to the northwest to breed, but the Canvas goes deeper into Canada/Alaska regions. To be honest, I do not completely understand the Canvas migration regions on Cornell. They have a breeding range in the upper parts of Montana and North Dakota but fly all the way to Idaho or the Great Lakes to make it down to Colorado/Oklahoma – it’s as if there’s a “Wall” they have to get around “is there anybody out there?”
“Did this idiot just refer to me as a piece of Black Forest Pie!?!”
Apparently offended this specimen, going to leave it there. Hope you enjoyed a look at the Canvasback and more importantly, have some tools to help you identify it in the field. Take care everyone, for some reason I am really hungry!
Life Intrigued 