DUCKS, GEESE, AND SWANS: RUDDY DUCK 
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white; most of upperparts, neck , and sides of breast , bright reddish brown; spiked 
fan-like tail held erect , blackish brown; wings brown, axillars and wing linings white 
marked with brown; underparts silky white, watered with dusky; iris reddish 
brown or hazel, bill bright blue, legs and toes bluish gray, webs darker. Adult male 
in fall arid winter plumage (corresponding to short eclipse plumage of other ducks): 
Similar to summer male but black of head 
replaced by blackish brown; upperparts 
mainly dark brown peppered with ash gray; 
throat and broad collar, ashy brown; bill and 
feet darker than in breeding plumage. In any 
plumage wings and tail may be pale ashy due 
to wear and fading. Adult female: Similar to 
winter male but cap narrowly barred with 
reddish brown, cheek crossed with dark stripe; 
upperparts dark brown finely barred, mixed Fig. 20. Ruddy Duck 
with ashy or buffy brown; breast indistinctly 
barred with black and brown; rest of underparts white, brown bases sometimes show¬ 
ing through and giving barred effect; bill dusky or duller than in male. Young in 
juvenal plumage: Similar to female but cheeks and throat white, mottled; feathers of 
crown and breast tipped with buffy. 
Range. —Breeds mainly in the sloughs and marshes of central and western North 
America; from southern British Columbia, Great Slave Lake, Saskatchewan, northern 
Manitoba, and northern Quebec south to Illinois, Michigan, south-central Texas, 
northern New Mexico, central Arizona, and Lower California; rarely and locally in 
eastern states, Mexico and Guatemala; winters from southwestern British Columbia, 
Arizona, New Mexico, southern Illinois, and Massachusetts, south to Lesser Antilles, 
and Costa Rica. 
State Records. —The Ruddy Duck is very irregular in its choice of a nesting site; 
it breeds locally from Great Slave Lake to Guatemala and is not rare in summer at a 
few places in northern New Mexico and central Colorado, although almost unknown 
at that season for a radius of several hundred miles. Half a dozen adults were found 
at La Jara Lake, September 17, 1904, where they were evidently on their breeding 
grounds, as young of different sizes were seen. A downy young and an adult were 
collected; the latter with entire wings in pin feathers so that it could not fly. The 
species was abundant at the Burford lakes, breeding in the tules with the coots, and 
downy young were taken there September 27, 1904 (Bailey). The nesting season is 
evidently a long one for on July 29, 1913, there were half-grown young and the 
species was common both on Lake Burford a,nd Clear Lake (Ligon). It was taken 
June 2, 1903, on a lake near Santa Rosa (Bailey), and June 10, 1855, near the Pecos 
close to the Texas-New Mexico boundary (Pope); it probably breeds at both these 
localities, and has been reported as breeding on the Carlsbad Bird Reserve (Willett). 
[On Lake Burford in July, 1916, it was found in great abundance (Ligon); and in 
May-June, 1918, was one of the commonest ducks, 55 pairs being estimated as 
breeding (Wetmore). On the Rio Grande Gun Club lake southwest of Albuquerque 
several were seen June 16, 1919 (Ligon).] 
Fall migrants were noted August 26, 1908, on Beaver Lake (Birdseye); a single 
bird was seen at a little pond in the Bear Spring Mountains September 29, 1905 
(Hollister); one October 7, 1900, at Albuquerque (Birtwell); and one at the Old 
Crater near Zuni (Henshaw) It was noted on the Mimbres, in 1911-1914 (Rockhill); 
at Chloride, April 25, 1915 (Ligon). [Several were also seen at North Lake, 35 miles 
northwest of Magdalena, October 3-8, 1916 (Ligon). At Silver City it is found in 
limited numbers both spring and fall (Kellogg, 1927).] 
