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:

Unmistakable in summer with almost all black plumage. White oval wing-patches in all plumages. Only auk with white wing-panels. Bill quite slender and pointed, body and wings rounded. Winter plumage blotched in grey and white, with dark wings (with white coverts). Typically scans for food by frequently dipping forehead in the water.

Sound:

Call surprisingly high pitched. Quite pure, drawn out, plaintive whistling notes in same pitch range as Hazel Grouse.

Contact 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

Sounds:Recorded by David Farrow. http://www.xeno-canto.org .CC license