Ring-necked duck, Kilmardinny Loch, Clyde

Ring-necked duck, the duck with rings everywhere apart from on it's neck, is a really smart species. In my opinion it sits proudly in a small, elite group of scarce yet very exciting North American vagrants which also includes the likes of buff-breasted sandpiper, pectoral sandpiper, wilson's phalarope, black brant, green-winged teal and cackling canada goose, not very rare yet very evocative species. 

I didn't have a lot of time today, I just stopped off in my lunch break for a quick look without too many expectations, because there's always the risk with these aythya diving ducks that by midday they'll all have their heads tucked in and be fast asleep. Not today though, all of the diving ducks were awake and chasing each other around and feeding and in amongst them was the ring-necked duck. 

Kilmardinny Loch at Bearsden is only a small loch, and so long as the birds are not asleep, decent views are pretty much guaranteed. Still, they were doing an awful lot of diving and at first decent photos were a challenge, but they were obviously doing a lap of the loch so I just waited 10 minutes and they came right past me. The close up photos are all phone scoped at close range during a period of relative inactivity.

A ring on the end of it's bill, a ring at the base of it's bill, a ring around it's nostril, a ring in it's eye and a ring on it's shoulders, in fact a ring everywhere bar on it's neck. Tell you what, let's call it a ring-necked duck!

Nope, still not seeing a ring on it's neck.

I think that these are nice comparison shots showing the starkly different head shapes and bill patterns of drake ring-necked duck and drake tufted ducks.