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Greater Scaup Duck — Part 2
Images coming soon.
The Ring-necked Duck (Aythyra collaris), or Ring-necked Blackhead, Marsh Bluebill, Ring-billed Blackhead, and Bastard Broadbill, as it is variously called, though of the same size as the lesser scaup, may be distinguished from either of its allies by a broad reddish brown collar, a white chin, entirely black shoulders, gray speculum on wings, and a bluish gray band across the end of the broad, black bill, which are its distinguishing marks. While the female closely resembles the female redhead, its smaller size, darker brown coloration, gray speculum, indistinct collar, and the shape and marking of its bill, are always diagnostic with a bird in the hand. This broadbill is almost exclusively a fresh water duck: not an abundant bird anywhere, apparently, even in the well-watered interior of this country and Canada, which is all ducks' paradise; and mention of its occurrences are so rare along the Atlantic coast as to make those seem accidental. On the fresh water lakes of some of the southern Atlantic states it is as abundant in winter, perhaps, as it is anywhere. Its classification among the sea and bay ducks has reference only to the full development of its feet.
It was Charles Bonaparte, Prince of Canino, who first named this duck, which had been previously confounded with the two other broadbills, as a distinct species; and we are still indebted to that tireless enthusiast for the greater part of our information concerning it, which is little enough. So far as studied, its habits differ little from those of its allies. At the base of the head, a few long feathers, scarcely to be distinguished as a crest, are constantly erected as the bird swims about on the lake with its neck curved swan fashion; and Audubon tells of its "emitting a note resembling the sound produced by a person blowing through a tube." Like many another duck, there is more interest shown in this one's flavor than in its life history.