Appearance:

Smallest dabbling duck. Agile, with quick and easy take-off. Male with brown and green head with yellow stripes, grey body with a white horizontal stripe, and a yellow patch by the tail. Female is mostly brown with slim bill with orange base and no cheek stripe (see Garganey). Both sexes with green speculum with broad, wedge-shaped, white front edge, and dark primaries clearly visible in flight. Easy and quick take-off from both water and land, with rapid and changing flight.

Sound:

Male: characteristic, short, highly resonant and metallic "plytt". A bit similar to Pintail, but higher pitched and lacking accompanying whistling sound. Female: various quacking sounds generally quicker paced, more nasal and noticeably higher pitched than Mallard.

Male:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-photo:Koshyk, Licence,Link,

Sounds:Recorded by Bernard Bousquet,http://www.xeno-canto.org ,CC license

Appearance:

Small head, short, thick neck, quite broad wings and fairly short tail. May be confused with a range of different species due to the highly variable plumage. Underparts range from almost white to very dark. Plumage tone ranges from chocolate to rusty brown. Dark morph usually with pale breast band. Shows 5 fingers like other Buteo, as opposed to small eagles. Tail lacks the broad terminal band of Rough-legged Buzzard. Neck thicker than in Honey Buzzard. Secondary coverts form a pale band in dark morph. Light morph typically with primary coverts forming black 'comma'. Soars with raised wings, but glides on straight wings.

Sound:

Quite vocal. Most typical call a wailing, mewing "peeoooo". Quite similar to Rough-legged Buzzard, but the pitch falls more rapidly and is then sustained for the last part of the call.

Call:

Distribution:

Wikipedia: map (se also Xeno-canto below)

Ecology:

Birdlife ecology

Links:

Observation.org Latest observations

Video IBC

Image search Flickr NB! May give other species

Sound search at Xeno-canto

Featherbase

CC

CC-sound:Piotr Szczypinski, Licence,Link.