Inwood Hill Park - Ring-necked Ducks - Mar 13, 2014

A brutally cold morning, but I went out for a quick check to see if the male White-winged Scoter was still around. Before I got to where I could see the area east of the Henry Hudson Bridge I spotted a male Ring-necked Duck in the shallow water north of the soccer fields (8:15 am). I figured it must be the bird Nadir Souirgi found here two days ago and Ken Chaya reported yesterday. I made a quick dash back to my apartment to see if I could glimpse the bird from there - it would be number 111 for my apartment list. I had no luck spotting it from the apartment - too many trees in the way. I headed back out to continue my search for the scoter. At first I could not see the Ring-neck, so I thought it must have flew off or drifted out into the channel. On going further out onto the peninsula where the baseball fields are being renovated, I discovered I was wrong. I spotted three Ring-necked Ducks (two males and a female) swimming out towards the canal.

Ring-necked Ducks                                                                  © Joseph DiCostanzo

In the photo the ducks are a bit washed out, making the males appear to have the pure white sides of a Tufted Duck, but in the field they had gray sides with the white, vertical stripe behind the breast of a Ring-neck. I would have loved for one of them to be a Tufted, but none of them were.

After a little while the three Ring-necks took off and flew off to the east. If I had been lucky enough to be looking out my apartment window at the time I would have been able to add them to the apartment list. Maybe another time.

There was no sign of the scoter.