When I first began birding, field guides said that the head color - TopicsExpress



          

When I first began birding, field guides said that the head color of the greater scaup tended to be green and the lesser purple. Forget it. The same bird can show both colors, depending on the light. The best field marks are head shape, bill size and shape, and the extent of the white stripe in the wings. Notice how the white stripe is limited to the secondaries in this lesser scaup. In the greater, the white stretches out into the primaries. I photographed this drake lesser scaup this morning, 4 Jan 2015, at Lady Bird Lake in Austin.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 19:23:46 +0000

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