The Ruddy Duck 



No. 370 



Ruddy Duck 



A. O. U. No. 167. Erismatura jamaicensis (Gmelin). 



Synonyms. — Pin-tail. Quill-tail. Spine-tail. Ruddy Diver. Spoon- 

 billed Butter-ball. Blue-bill. Bull-neck. Spatterer. Spatter Duck. Spat. 



Description. — Adult male in breeding plumage: Top of head and nape black; 

 cheeks and chin white; neck all around, chest, sides of breast, sides, and upperparts, 

 rich chestnut-red; wings, lower back (but not upper coverts), and tail, blackish; tail, 

 mostly exposed, widely spread, graduated at sides, composed of eighteen to twenty 

 stiffish feathers, which, except in the breeding season, have the tips of the shafts more 

 or less exposed; remaining underparts silvery white (overlying dark brownish gray, 

 which is irregularly and sometimes completely exposed, especially on sides, according 

 to the wear of the plumage), lightly washed, especially on breast, with bright rusty. 

 Bill light blue; feet bluish gray with dusky webs; iris brownish red. "Adult male 

 in winter: Top and side of head to below eye, and hind-neck, blackish brown, minutely 

 flecked with ashy brown; patch on side of head white, as in summer; whole upper 

 surface of body dark brown, minutely peppered with ash)' gray and chestnut; tail and 

 wings and lower surface as in summer; throat and broad collar around neck, ashy 

 brown. In any plumage wings and tail may be pale ashy due to wear and fading" 

 ("Game Birds of Calif.," Grinnell, Bryant, and Storer). Adult female and immature: 

 Above, including top of head, dark grayish brown or dusk)', finely mottled, or some- 

 times indistinctly barred, on scapulars, etc., with buffy gray; throat and sides of head 

 and neck, contrasting with crown, whitish, usually crossed longitudinally on sides of 

 head by an indistinct dusky band; underparts as in adult male, but underlying brown 

 more extensively outcropping, and fore-neck, chest and sides heavily tinged with 

 bright rusty or ochraceous. Length 355.6-419. 1 (14.00-16.50) ; wing 144 (5.67); tail 

 67.3 (2.65); bill 40.6 (1.60); greatest breadth of bill 23.4 (.92); tarsus 34.5 (1.36). 

 Females average a little smaller. 



Recognition Marks. — Teal size or slightly larger; chestnut-red coloring of 

 male; dark and light contrasting on sides of head in female and young; "chunky" 

 appearance; tail of stiff, usually pointed, feathers, generally upturned while on water. 



Nesting. — Nest: A slight platform of tules or other marshy waste, placed 

 under dense cover near edge of pond or stream, or else a bulky mass of reeds built up 

 out of water in shelter of tule clump, and lined with dull whitish down. Eggs: 4 to 

 12, 19 of record; lusterless and granular, dull white or palest yellowish glaucous. Av. 

 size 63.5 x 45.7 (2.50 x 1.80); index 72. Season: May-June; one brood. 



General Range. — Temperate North America. Breeds from British Columbia, 

 Great Slave Lake, southern Keewatin, and northern Mackenzie, south regularly to 

 northern Lower California, central Arizona, northwestern Nebraska, the southern 

 portions of Minnesota, Michigan, and Ontario, and Maine, and locally elsewhere, as 

 Massachusetts, Cuba, Porto Rico, Guatemala, Valley of Mexico, and Cape San Lucas 

 region. Winters in warmer portions of range from British Columbia, Arizona, southern 

 Illinois, etc., south to the West Indies and Costa Rica. 



Distribution in California. — Common resident on fresh-water lakes and 

 tule-bordered ponds throughout the State, — the best distributed of ducks. . Numbers 

 considerably augmented in winter, especially southerly. 



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