First Goldeneye Sighting

While surveying the flooded fields yester- day along highway 101 at Hoyt I noticed a small ice floe moving in what seemed to be a somewhat determined fashion and I quickly decided that it was not an ice floe at all but maybe a duck. Upon closer examination I discovered a male common Goldeneye a bit upstream from the highway bridge; my first duck sighting of the year! The photo above, although taken at a great distance, docu- ments the white circle on the duck's auri- culars (cheek) which is characteristic of the male Common Goldeneye and serves as identification. The three male Goldeneye photo above is of ducks seen in March 2004: at the same location as the one I had seen yesterday.
Another posting on Common Goldeneye may be viewed at:http://naturetales.blogspot.com/2006/11/common-goldeneye.html