All species › Waterfowl › Ducks, swans and geese › Ruddy Duck
Position in the tree Birds Aves › Birds with a flexible palate Neognathae › Fowl Galloanserae
Ruddy Duck | Oxyura jamaicensis
Rosse stekelstaart | Malvasía canela
The Ruddy Duck is a compact diving duck with a stiff tail that is often held upright. In the guide area it breeds on the lakes and marshes of the Mexican plateau and locally in the highlands of Guatemala; in winter large numbers of birds from North America arrive, which also spread over the coastal lagoons.
Voice
Mostly silent. In display the male makes a dry ticking sound by slapping the bill against the inflated breast, ending in a short croaking tick-tick-tick-kurr, which raises bubbles on the water.
Recording: Paul Marvin — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
35–43 cm, with a broad, short head, a thick neck and a stiff tail of pointed feathers. The breeding male is deep chestnut with a black cap, white cheeks and a bright sky-blue bill. Outside the breeding season the male is greyish-brown, with the same white cheek and a dark bill. The female is greyish-brown with a dark cap and a pale cheek crossed by a single dark line. It flies low and fast with whirring wingbeats, after a run across the water, and shows no white in the wing.
Confusion species
Masked Duck Nomonyx dominicus is slightly smaller and shows a white wing patch in every plumage. The male has a black mask and a spotted back rather than a white cheek; the female has two dark stripes on the face rather than one. Female Lesser Scaup Aythya affinis and Ring-necked Duck Aythya collaris have a white patch at the bill base or a pale eye-ring, but no striped cheek and no stiff tail.
Habitat
Fresh and brackish lakes, reservoirs, fish ponds and sewage ponds, preferably with a fringe of reeds or cattail for nesting. In winter also on open coastal lagoons and on inland salt lakes. It dives for midge larvae, small molluscs and seeds of aquatic plants.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation units of Mexico and Central America.
Range and movements
In the guide area it breeds on the Mexican plateau, from Chihuahua and Durango through Zacatecas, Jalisco, Guanajuato and Michoacán to the Valley of Mexico and Puebla, further in northern Baja California and locally in the highlands of Chiapas and Guatemala. In winter widespread over much of Mexico, including the coasts of the Gulf of California and the Gulf of Mexico, and in smaller numbers south to El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua; rare in Costa Rica. Outside the guide area the species breeds in Canada, the United States and the West Indies.
- Resident
- Winter visitor (c. Oct–Mar)
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In winter often in flocks of hundreds on plateau lakes and sewage ponds, such as at Lake Texcoco near Mexico City; by day the birds sleep with the head under the wing and the tail raised.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the guide area a common winter visitor and a locally common resident on the plateau. The drying out and pollution of highland lakes threatens the breeding sites.
Scientific name
Oxyura jamaicensis | (Gmelin, 1789)
Gmelin described the species in 1789 as Anas jamaicensis; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Oxyura was introduced in 1828 by Bonaparte. Oxyura is Greek, from oxys 'sharp' and oura 'tail', after the stiff tail feathers the bird can hold upright. jamaicensis means 'from Jamaica', the island the first described specimen came from. The specimen the first description was based on came from Jamaica.