Bufflehead
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| Bufflehead Conservation status: Lower risk (lc) | ||||||||||||||
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| Missing image Bufflehead.jpg Bufflehead Adult drake | ||||||||||||||
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| Bucephala albeola Linnaeus, 1758 |
The Bufflehead (Bucephala albeola) is a small sea duck of the genus Bucephala, the goldeneyes. They are 32-39 cm long, with the drakes larger than the females.
Adult males have a dark head with a large white cap behind the eye and a mainly white body with a black back. Adult females have a brown head with a smaller white patch behind the eye and a mainly brown body.
Their breeding habitat is wooded lakes and ponds in Alaska and Canada. They nest in cavities in trees, often using old Flicker nests.
They are migratory and most winter in protected coastal waters or open inland waters on the east and west coasts of North America and the southern United States. Bufflehead is an extremely rare vagrant to western Europe.
These diving birds forage underwater. They eat aquatic insects, crustaceans and plants.
Buffleheads do not tend not to collect in large flocks; groups are usually limited to small numbers (less than 10).