With almost no open water on lakes Great and small, ducks and gulls have been spending lots of time on our rivers.  This year we’re also finding a higher than usual number of red-necked grebes.

Eleven years ago I saw my first ever red-necked grebe on the Allegheny River at Rosston (March 2, 2003).  Still in basic plumage, he was plain gray and white with a long pointed bill slightly yellow at the base.  He held up the feathers at the top edges of his head; it made his head look lumpy.  But he didn’t have a red neck.  He wasn’t in breeding plumage.

And so it went.  I periodically saw red-necked grebes but never their red necks because they usually molt into breeding plumage after they leave Pennsylvania.  Richard Crossley’s illustration from The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland (above) shows the basic and breeding plumages of red-necked grebes but emphasizes their appearance in winter because the grebes don’t breed in Britain and Ireland either.

So I was excited to read Jim Hausman’s March 6 report that there was a red-necked grebe at Duck Hollow and the bird had a red neck.

I drove down after work on Friday and found two grebes molting into breeding plumage.   Ta dah!  Not a Life Bird but a “Life Plumage.”  Here’s Jim Hausman’s photo of one of them.

After all these years I finally saw red.

(Illustration at top: Red-necked grebe by Richard Crossley (The Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland), Creative Commons license via Wikimedia Commons. Click on the image to see the original.
Photo at bottom by Jim Hausman)

5 March 2014

The frozen Great Lakes have prompted a lot of gulls and waterfowl to visit Pittsburgh’s rivers this winter.  Bird reports for the past month often mention long-tailed ducks, white-winged scoters, red-breasted mergansers, redheads and canvasbacks.

These photos by Steve Gosser reminded me that of all the birds listed above, redheads and canvasbacks are the most confusing.  Both are diving ducks with red heads, black breasts, dark butts, and white or gray backs.   Both could be named “redheads,” so what is the “canvas” back that makes the difference?

Despite their names the “canvas back” is not the easiest way to tell them apart.  The best way is to look at their heads and bills in profile:

• Canvasbacks have long sloping foreheads and bills that make a straight line from forehead to tip.
• Redheads have round, bulbous heads and an angle where the bill meets the face.

If both birds are present, the canvasback is the larger one.  If the light is good you’ll see additional distinguishing features.  Let’s take a closer look.

Redheads have pale bills with a black tip.  The males’ backs are gray and eyes are yellow.  Up close you can really see the bulbous head.

Canvasbacks have black bills. The males have red eyes and white backs with a faint pattern like woven canvas, but that’s something you’ll never see unless you’re a duck hunter.  The sloping face and forehead are really evident up close and are the main way to identify female canvasbacks who are basically brown.

It’s easy for me to tell the two ducks apart but my brain gets in the way sometimes when I have to name them.  I may look at a canvasback and think, “That duck has a red head so it’s a … redhead.”    Nope!

The hardest part is mentally finding the right noun.

(photos by Steve Gosser)