January 9 2013. Hamilton ON. While quite a bit of Canada is perfectly capable of living up to it’s reputation as the place of snow, ice and deep dark cold, here in Southern Ontario winter can be a hit and miss affair. It’s true that some January days can be numbingly cold, but others, like today, are well, actually quite mild. Today’s trade off was a buffeting south-west wind which really shouldn’t have made much difference, but it was tough being a duck, they had to seek out a sheltered spot away from the white-caps and spindrift and just sit out the blast.
Knowing that waterfowl should be easy to find I spent an hour or so prowling some quieter corners of the harbour. The birding was much as expected. Apart from a curious Muscovy Duck, a South American species often kept around farm yards, there were tons of Mallards, Canada Geese, and Lesser Scaup; a scattering of Red-breasted Mergansers, rafts of loafing Ring-billed Gulls and best of all, my Bird of the Day, half a dozen Redheads.
Redheads and their close cousins, Canvasbacks, positively shine in the winter sun. They can be told apart at a distance by the shape of their chestnut heads. Redhead’s heads are round and classic duck shape like a Mallard’s, whereas Canvasbacks’ heads are distinctly patrician, they have long sloping foreheads.
While they may look more aristocratic, it hasn’t always been fun being a Canvasback (or Canvas-back as they were once known). The last couple of centuries have been particularly tough. As P.A. Taverner in the 1934 Canada Department on Mines publication, “Birds of Canada”, put it: “To many sportsmen the Canvas-back ranks first among the ducks and its praises have been sung for generations.” My fragile copy of the 1906 Bird Guide. Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey, by Chester A. Reed, has this to say about Canvas-back: “…(they) are one of the most persistently hunted birds, for their flesh is much esteemed, and they have a high market value.”
Volumes have no doubt been written about the rewards, techniques and regulation of sport hunting , but that’s not my field. I prefer photographs.
[slickr-flickr tag=”redhead”]
Beautiful shots. Love the Muscovy Duck.