DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS: Family Anatidae [153] 



DISTRIBUTION.- General: Breeds from central British Columbia, central Alberta, 

 central Saskatchewan, and central Manitoba south to southern Michigan, Wiscon- 

 sin, southern Minnesota, central Nebraska, southern Colorado, New Mexico, and 

 southern California. Winters mainly in southern United States. In Oregon: Present 

 breeding range restricted to Malheur, Harney, Lake, and Klamath Counties, much 

 less common there than formerly. Formerly reported an abundant migrant and 

 winter resident of western Oregon, now of only local occurrence west of Cascades. 



THE REDHEAD, once one of the common breeding ducks of Oregon, par- 

 ticularly in the ponds of Klamath County, has suffered as much from the 

 combination of long-continued drought and agricultural development of 

 its summer home as any species found in the State and must now be ranked 

 as one of our rapidly vanishing species of waterfowl. Baird (1858) first 

 recorded it for Oregon at The Dalles, January 7, 1885. Every ornithol- 

 ogist who has since visited the great interior country has commented on 

 its presence either as a nesting or migrant species. Anthony (Bailey 1901) 

 reported it as wintering on the Columbia. Bohlman (Woodcock 1901) 

 reported a specimen taken at Ross Island in the Willamette, November 

 2.8, 1897, and there is a specimen in the University of Washington collec- 

 tion taken by Rev. P. S. Knight at Salem, April 16, 1874. 



The species was formerly common from April to September, breed- 

 ing in numbers in the shallow ponds and lakes of Klamath and 

 Malheur Counties, and it still breeds in much reduced numbers in the 

 fresh-water ponds and lakes of the southern half of the State east of the 

 Cascades, where water conditions are favorable, being somewhat more 

 abundant in Klamath than in Lake and Harney Counties and relatively 

 scarce in Malheur, where it is a comparatively rare summer resident of 

 the Cow Lakes district. In Klamath, Lake, and Harney Counties it has 

 been regularly found on the deeper ponds. The earliest date we have is 

 March n; the latest, October 7, both Klamath County. Jewett found a 

 nest containing 10 eggs on Miller Island in Klamath County, June 17, 

 192.5, and reported one containing 6 eggs at Malheur Lake, June 10, 1912., 

 and one with 9 eggs, June 4, 19x6. Prill recorded sets of from 8 to 10 

 eggs at Pelican Lake, Lake County, in May and June 192.1. Visitors to 

 these ponds in July and August are almost invariably rewarded by the 

 sight of fleets of sooty-looking ducklings accompanied by an equally 

 sooty, anxious mother. By mid-August, the young are well feathered 

 and able to fly but, where unmolested, remain tame and unsuspicious up 

 to the opening of the shooting season. We have no winter records from 

 eastern Oregon in our own notes, but in the Biological Survey notes 

 Furber reported the species at Klamath, December 18, 1910, and January 

 14, 1913, and Cantwell, at Malheur, December 8, 1914. 



In western Oregon, this duck is seldom reported by present-day sports- 

 men, and although Johnson (1880) formerly recorded it as an abundant 

 migrant and winter resident of western Oregon, it is now of only local 



