[EBB Sightings] Mystery aythya-type duck at Lake Merritt, Oakland (Alameda Co)

Hilary Powers and I birded Lake Merritt in Oakland
(Alameda County) this afternoon in search of the
tufted duck and the hooded merganser x common
goldeneye.  Didn't find those, but did find an unusual
red-headed aythya-type duck on the lake just behind
the Nature Center. It might be a female redhead, but
the back looks more gray than brown.  The bird has a
pale, not white, eye-ring, a pale line extending back
from its eye, pale feathers around the base of its 
bill, and a pale chin. Near the tip of its all-dark
bill is a grayish-blue encircling line. The bird has
some vaguely white spots on its head, as if it had
been spattered with paint.  It was hanging out in 
a mixed group of mostly lesser scaup with a few
canvasbacks and at least one distant ring-necked duck.
 I've been trying to turn it into a common pochard,
but (aside from the extreme unlikelihood of that) its
head shape seems too round, and it is overall more
reddish than brown. Could it be a hybrid of some kind?


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y49/sing4me/100_2494.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y49/sing4me/100_2495.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y49/sing4me/100_2497.jpg




Stephanie Floyd
Fremont


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