Dark Headed Ruddy Duck (1 Viewer)

Dear all,
I've been trawling through my videos and have found a sequence from August 2002 taken at Stanford Reservoir on the Northants/Leics border of an apparent dark headed variant of Ruddy Duck, three videograbs of which I've included below. This bird appears unringed in my video and kept company with 100 Ruddy Ducks and the Wite-Headed Duck which was my reason for going in the first place.

I've never seen such a Ruddy Duck in 20 years of birding and wonder if anyone else has - although I am aware that such variants do exist. Is it a Ruddy Duck? According to 'Wildfowl ' by Madge and Burn, there is a dark headed (sub)species of Ruddy Duck called Peruvian Ruddy Duck which would mean this bird is an escape from captivity (if you can get an 'escaped' Ruddy Duck if you see what I mean?). The absence of a blue bill may be significant, but perhaps having a dark head means the bill is dark too? Also, is it my imagination, or does the head shape seem not quite right for Ruddy Duck - or is it merely optical illusion due to the atypical head colour?

So two questions are in my mind, both of which I can't answer with any certainty:

Is this a 'normal' Ruddy Duck with a black head or Peruvian Ruddy Duck?
How unusual are Ruddy Ducks with black heads in the UK and in America?

Quite a conundrum isn't it? If anyone can help or has seen anything similar in the UK or otherwise, I'd be interested to hear from you.

Regards,
Lancey

Hi Lancey

i think i've read somewhere that these may be a genetic 'throwback' - was one in Norfolk couple of years back. Think they're almost identical to Andean Duck which is a distinct species A. ferruginea and desribed in, for example, Birds of Peru. That species has a more rounded head shape and no white in undertail if i remember rightly - not got my field notes to hand right now.

i guess then this is a variant of Ruddy......

It is rather hard to judge from the photo. It could very well be the genetic 'throwback' mentioned by Tim (I haven't heard of it, but have little doubt that it exists). Otherwise, there's a whole bunch of species in that genus where males have black heads. All are kept in captivity. These are A. ferruginea (there are still claims that it is better if kept as a ssp. of O. jamaicensis) from South America, O. vittata also from South America, O. maccao from Africa, and O. australis from "down under". The head & bill-shape does point towards Ruddy Duck (O. jamaicensis), but it would - for me at least - be very hard to say anything for certain.

Photo and discussion of a similar bird in California is at:

http://fog.ccsf.edu/~jmorlan/aug.htm