Redhead or Ringneck?

Dave Diefenderfer

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I realize I may expose myself to ridicule with this post, I do so, purely as an educational exercise.
I shot this hen on Thursday, and after consulting my LeMaster ID book, I am still unsure. If you are confident in your identification, please highlight what makes you so:



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I say redhead. based on color, lack of a bright white bill band, lack of a light face patch and size.
Redheads are significantly larger than ringnecks.
Think lesser scaup vs. greater scaup size difference.
The bird in this photo is a ringneck.
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I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say young hen Ringneck.

Why?

Cuz the size of the wing, in relation to your hand holding the wing.

Redheads are much larger than Ringnecks. At least all the ones that I have shot.

my 2 cents
 
You may have a point here, the wing does look relatively small compacted to his hand.
 
It is a young bird which makes ID harder. Smaller than a lesser BB I shot Thursday. If push came to shove, I would have counted it as a RH just to be on the safe side, but adds more reason to stick with drakes! Easier to ID!
 
If it was smaller than a hen lesser scaup, I definitely now lean towards ringneck.
Even a yearling redhead would be larger than that.

Yeah, drakes are easier!
 

No matter how hard we try. Hens are always something we must deal with as best we can.

I tip my hat to you for addressing your question, and seeking a answer.

Many a Game Officer must deal with the same questions, and in my experience may know less than the hunter. This is when personal knowledge and study does come into play.


Where I lived in western PA, is a major flight corridor for Ringnecks. From early on I became very familiar with them. Darn fine ducks to hunt and eat. Had my first good drake mounted, in a cupped pose.

1976 when the season was, reopened shot my first drake Redheads. Major WOW factor. Had a nice drake mounted as well. Studied the birds I shot, and the mounts for many years.

When I. moved to NY, many of the waterfowl mounts were placed in others care. I do miss them, but can recall each one in detail.


The LeMaster book is a good one, and has been part of my library since it came out, but nothing beats personal experience, and a lifetime of memories.


Best regards
Vince
 
Dave,

Looks like a young hen Ringneck. Light brown head and eye ring is much different than a Redhead. There would be a slight redness on the head even in a female Redhead. It also looks small compared to a Redhead. Stubby wings.

RVZ
 
Look at the length of that bill, definitely a canvasback x redhead.

Just kidding I have not seen any in person so I would not know myself. I unfortunately don't get to encounter these birds where I hunt, so an educational post to help the rest of us too.
 
Dave in either case, I would say juvie, but size wise, lean toward ringneck. There is a faint whitish on the bill, BUT, it seems you put a pellet there. As an aside, I find that picking ringnecks is almost impossible. That would be a pretty good tell for me, also. Good to see your interest in knowing what you have taken into your bag.
 
I found that not only are ringnecks next to impossible to pick the feathers, the skin on the breast has to be cut away vs simply peeling away like most ducks.
Back when we used to get a lot of ringers in Mobile, I would cut the breast meat off, w/feathers & skin left on & then use a fillet knife to remove the skin, just like cleaning a fish fillet.
Given they almost strict vegetarian & seed diet, they are great tablefare, even if they are hard to clean!.
 
Dave, George & Carl~


I, too, lean toward Ringbill - because of the small size.



And I, too, have wrestled with trying to pluck them!


All the best,


SJS

 
I too am going with very immature female ring neck based on apparent size and greenish iridescent on secondary coverts. I went thru the USFWS key for differentiation of wings and couldn't really differentiate without some measurements. Same with bill. I'm troubled that the head appears brown/tan instead of gray/dark and less prominent eye ring. Additionally, the lack of white on flank in front wing and contrasting back and flanks also suggest redhead.

I would also suggest the waterfowl identification guide by Pat Bosco and Rich Grosz published by Delta. It's excellent.

edited to say I also hate skinning ringneck or plucking them. But that might be the telling feature on this bird. How was cleaning it Dave?
 
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The more I look, the more undecided I am. I beginning to wonder if its a RH x RN hybrid??
 
Unless folks had mentioned cleaning as a indicator, IDK that I would have noticed, and likely would have chalked it up to a young, thin bird, but she did not skin very easy. I clean all divers the same, plucking just enough along the breast bone to get my bearings, then slice down both sides of the breast bone, angle up into the shoulders and across the breast at the bottom of the breast bone. I then fillet along the bone to the skin and then remove the breast from the skin. For this bird, I had to cut all along the way, while the Bluebill drake pulled away from the skin mostly. Though the BB had a fat layer and was a mature, well plumed bird.
 
Brad Bortner said:
I too am going with very immature female ring neck based on apparent size and greenish iridescent on secondary coverts. I went thru the USFWS key for differentiation of wings and couldn't really differentiate without some measurements. Same with bill. I'm troubled that the head appears brown/tan instead of gray/dark and less prominent eye ring. Additionally, the lack of white on flank in front wing and contrasting back and flanks also suggest redhead.

I would also suggest the waterfowl identification guide by Pat Bosco and Rich Grosz published by Delta. It's excellent.

edited to say I also hate skinning ringneck or plucking them. But that might be the telling feature on this bird. How was cleaning it Dave?

There is a very marked difference in skinning these two species. Steve Lewis and I hit a flight into Munuscong a couple years back perfectly timed. Easily 6-8 thousand redheads on the bay and two more pods, north and south on the open river that year, as well as nearly a thousand ringers scattered among the open water pockets on the bay. Weather oscillated from cold rain to snow squalls, which each burst moving birds. I breasted-out birds to allow us to get inside quickly after we orgnized Steve's Crusader, which handled the weather really well. Even freshly killed the ringnecks were a " bugger" to skin...I use an approach nearly identical to Dave's. Buffies can be a pain when cold, too. If you have a propane torch handy, just skin them and knock-back the feathers and pin feathers with the torch. You actually get a little jucier breast fillet when cooked via the subcutaneous fat layer. You can also pan sear this side in butter or Smart Balance( yes, you can really fry with this, as well as raise HDL-C which is involved in reverse cholesterol transport back to hepatocytes). You can make a nice redwine reduction from Mondavi Select =Cabernet Sauvignon ( really strong black berry taste and good cherry finish, with good body, particularly for the price.) and then add dried tart cherries and some current jelly to make a really good sauce to pair with any diver breast meat.

I taught two terms as a teachig assistant for Fish and Wildlife of North America and one term for Harold Prince's Migratory Birds of North America while an undegrad and graduate student at MSU. Brad, your observations are pretty spot-on. The head looks very much like a redhead, but the irredescenece in the wing is the giveaway, as well as how tough the bird was to skin-out. These two species are the toughest to distinguish from each other's as hens, far more difficult than wing comparisons for scaup species.. We stumped most of the students on lab. practicums with a side-by-side comparison of hen ringneck and hen redhead wings and study skins; easily the hardest ID to make among waterfowl. Often the shoulder covert bands will have a slight green iridescence on the feathers as well. I swapped back-and forth on one very similar bird until we had three hen redheads as comparators that Munuscong hunt, to slide it over to the ringneck hen side. On juvenile hens that eye ring is not often well defined, and seldom whiter than that of a redhead hen.
 
Based on the angle of the bill, sure looks more like a canvasback or can cross to me.

As for skinning all ducks other than ringnecks, there's no need to pluck anything. Just make an incision at the base of the neck, tear it open and run your thumbs between the skin and meat as you tear it off all the way down to the vent. Then peel it down to the wings and filet the meat off the bone.
 
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