Went out with the wife on a photo run. I can't confidently match this with anything in my books. Any ideas? About teal size and it did a fair number of short dives. It's tail is sitting flat in the water.

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Thank you, 1Minute

Female Ruddy???

Just a guess....

Goldeneye hen.

Nice pic.

Good call.

Sgt217: I think you have it. With a better look I too think female Ruddy. Blowing it up or looking at the original photo, it does have a rather stiff tail trailing flush in the water and a good stout bill. Between possibly being an immature and a female too, coloration just did not mesh with any of our books though. Lots of variation in the bird world though.

It is NOT a female ruddy. Note the uniform cheek color and wrong bill shape.

It is a hen barrow's goldeneye as the others said. It is one of the most common birds here in saltwater and amazingly, one of the best eating. Note the solid color wing and yellow eye...
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Plus, the Ruddy sports gray feet, not orange like in the pic.

Juvi drake will look extremely similar, but the orange saddle on the bill is the clincher...

Troops: I will have to get back down and see if we can catch a similar looking bird hanging out with some company. I've never had one in hand. This one was a loner. It was also tolerant of our presence, and that's not typical of the golden eyes in the past. For some reason, we don't have many of them around this year. We typically get quite a few of the Commons, but the Barrows are rare for us. We're about 6 hrs driving time in from the coast.

I appreciate the feedback. It's chunkiness and stiff tail had me leaning to ruddy, but color was not matching up with anything at all in our shelf full of books. One would think he could find a better array of images on the web than seem to be available. Guess folks are just tight with their pictures.

I did a bit more surfing, and finally found one image of a pair that meshes well with this photo. The bill on our bird is a bit darker than in this link, but everything else looks really close. Could be bill color changes with proximity of the breeding season.

Another Barrow's Golden Eye photo..

Thanks. Once again, I've learned something, and as usual, it's that I don't know sh-t. 1Minute

Juvi would not usually have the clear yellow eye in the first fall. But the hint of white around the base of the bill does look like a juvi. It is late enough to expect a juvi male to show more colors, IMO... I would stick with adult hen barrow's, but would not be betting against a juvi drake...
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Don't imagine this old pic will definitively prove anything, but my brother is getting his hug on with a common GE hen (immature at that). We don't get barrow's here, but most years after FW lock up we get plenty of GEs, buffies, etc. BTW, his lid is made from goldeneye hide. JK.

I'd say barrow's goldeneye hen