Red-Head

Redheads (Aythya Americana) are diving ducks of lowland marshlands. They have a deep orange-coppery head, yellow (sometimes orange) eyes and a small, short neck. Their flight is swift and agile they skillfully wheel and turn, sometimes dropping from the sky at abrupt angles, at such tremendous speeds that their stiffened wings generate loud humming sounds. Migrating Redheads (Aythya Americana) travel in V-shaped formation usually in flocks of their own kind. Most active during the early morning and evening hours in winter, Redheads (Aythya Americana) forage nocturnally, especially on moonlit nights. In winter, much of their day is spent well out on open lakes, marshes and sheltered coastal bays as far south as Guatemala. The majority are attracted to coastal waters, where the ducks sometimes raft up in tens of thousands. Reproductive output falls drastically during drought years, when clutches are typically smaller. Nest parasitism is rife and females often lay in the nests of other species. They breed across a huge belt of the western U.S. and Canada. Pair formation occurs from mid-winter onwards. Redheads (Aythya Americana) can nest on smaller bodies of water, including reedy roadside ponds that may be preferable to lakes, due to the absence of predatory fish. Normally nesting on or over water, sometimes with vegetation pulled down over the top of nests for added concealment, females may also nest atop muskrat lodges. Many Redheads (Aythya Americana) nest in the extensive Bear River marshes of Utah, the breeding stronghold is in the more northerly prairie pothole country, and it starts in April and May. Their diet consists of vegetation, but the pochards also prey on grasshoppers, aquatic insect larvae, mollusks, small crustaceans and newts.