Tufted Duck

The next in the list of Winter Migrants to the City Beautiful is Tufted Duck. Like every year, this year also Tufted Ducks started arriving in the month of October 2021 and likely to stay here till March 2022. I had spotted Tufted Duck at Dhanas Lake on 23rd October and a flock of Tufted Ducks & Common Pochard at Sukhna Lake on 28th October 2021.

The tufted duck is medium-sized diving ducks ,with short bodies and large heads.  They are called tufted ducks because they have a unique tuft on their heads ( clearly visible in the featured image ) 

The adult male is all black except for white flanks and a blue-grey bill with gold-yellow eyes, along with a thin crest on the back of its head. In flight it shows an obvious white stripe across the back of the wing. The adult female is brown with paler flanks.   

Tufted ducks are superb divers, going as deep as 50 feet below the water’s surface as they forage. When startled, they will take off from the water quickly, running briefly along the surface to get enough speed for an explosive liftoff.

Tufted ducks, unlike some other bird populations, breed once a year only. They are monogamous which means they will have only one partner during the breeding cycle.