Ruddy Duck

About the Ruddy Duck

The Ruddy Duck is the clown prince of the duck world -- a chunky little stiff-tailed diver that cocks its tail like a wren, and in spring the drake turns chestnut-red, sprouts gleaming white cheeks, and his bill turns SKY BLUE, a color no field guide quite prepares you for. His courtship is better still: he drums that blue bill against his chest fast enough to raise a ring of bubbles, a display ornithologists soberly call "bubbling."

Winter birds -- the way Texas usually sees them -- are gray-brown with the dark cap and pale cheek patch, riding low in tight rafts and diving for midge larvae. They are almost helpless on land and famously reluctant to fly, preferring to sink out of trouble like a grebe.

Most of my hundreds of Ruddy Duck sightings never produced a frame worth keeping -- they are champion drifters-away. These photos, from a July 2023 session at Travis County ponds, finally caught birds close enough to do the species justice.

That stiff cocked tail is the signature -- wait for it. A Ruddy with its tail flat is just a brown duck; the moment the fan comes up, the photograph becomes a Ruddy Duck.