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Bufflehead | Bucephala albeola
Buffelkopeend | Porrón albeola
The Bufflehead is a small, compact diving duck with a large rounded head. It breeds in the forests of Canada and Alaska and winters along the coasts and on lakes of the United States and northern Mexico. In the Caribbean it is a rare vagrant.
Voice
Usually silent in winter. The displaying male gives a squeaky chatter, the female a low hoarse cruk.
Recording: Richard E. Webster — CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · shortened to the first 60 s, mono · xeno-canto
Identification
32–40 cm, small and stocky, with a short grey bill and a large head. The male is white on the flanks and underparts, black on the back, and has a dark head, glossed green and purple in good light, with a large white patch from behind the eye over the back of the head. Female and young birds are grey-brown with a dark head and an oval white patch on the cheek behind the eye. In flight the male shows a large white patch on the inner wing, the female a smaller white patch on the secondaries. It dives often and quickly, and flies low on rapid wingbeats.
Confusion species
Male Hooded Merganser Lophodytes cucullatus also has a large white patch on the head, but it is edged black and set in a crest that can be raised; the flanks are rusty and the bill long and thin. Female Ruddy Duck Oxyura jamaicensis has a dark line across a pale cheek and a stiff tail. Female Lesser Scaup Aythya affinis is larger and has a white blaze at the base of the bill rather than a cheek patch.
Habitat
On fresh and brackish lakes, ponds, lagoons and sheltered bays. It dives for aquatic insects, crustaceans and molluscs, and also eats seeds.
Where the bird is most at home, classified by the vegetation types of the Caribbean.
Range and movements
Records come from the Bahamas, Jamaica, Cuba, where the species is considered very rare, and Puerto Rico, where it is regarded as accidental, among other islands; most records fall in the north of the region. Outside the region the Bufflehead breeds in Alaska and Canada and winters in the United States and northern Mexico.
How and when to look
A Bufflehead in the region usually sits on a pond or lagoon among other ducks, often with Lesser Scaup. The male stands out at a distance because of all the white; females are often overlooked.
Conservation status
Not threatened globally. In the Caribbean a rare vagrant.
Scientific name
Bucephala albeola | (Linnaeus, 1758)
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 as Anas Albeola; because it was later moved to another genus, the author and year stand in brackets. The genus Bucephala was introduced in 1858 by Baird. Bucephala is Greek, from boukephalos 'bull-headed', from bous 'bull' and kephalē 'head', after the strikingly bulbous head. albeola is a diminutive of Latin albus 'white', after the extensive white in the plumage. The specimen the first description was based on came from Newfoundland.