Hybrid Duck Gets Its Due

["Kristin Purdy" <kristinpurdy at comcast dot net>]

Consider this message a follow-up to the follow-up.  I've posted two 
messages about a hybrid duck I saw at Farmington Bay WMA in November 
2004:  

http://utahbirds.org/listarchives/birdtalk/msg01513.html

http://utahbirds.org/listarchives/birdtalk/msg02426.html

This is chapter 3 and this time, I've got photographs. 

I recently learned that Arnold Smith of Wasatch Audubon saw and 
photographed a hybrid he believed to be a Bufflehead x Common Goldeneye 
in March 1999.  This duck spent several days in a Weber Canyon pond at 
the rest stop between South Weber's exit 87 and Mountain Green's exit 
92.  The bird was subsequently observed by Keith Evans and Jack Rensel.  
Arnold wrote an article about his hybrid in Utah Birds, the journal of 
the Utah Ornithological Society.  

Arnold gave me a set of his photos last week.  My reaction?  "OHMYGOSH, 
that's my duck!"  I felt as though I had used Arnold's pictures to write 
my description.  Feast your eyes:

http://utahbirds.org/featarts/HybridDuck.htm

My favorite photo is the 5th one down--the comparison shot with the 
juvenile goldeneye.  The hybrid looks like a caricature of a duck from a 
cartoon--the dastardly evil duck.  That's the way I remember the bird I 
saw at Farmington last November.

I sent a copy of Arnold's photographs to Eric and Barry Gillham, hybrid 
duck researchers in the UK, for confirmation of Arnold's ID.  I also 
described the slight variations between Arnold's hybrid and mine, 
including my duck's iris color (pale gold vs. Arnold's dark 
reddish-brown), no dark 'hook' on the back of my bird's white cheek, and 
thin black edges to my duck's scapulars.  The Gillhams replied and 
confirmed both the parentage of Arnold's bird and mine--both ducks were 
Bufflehead x Common Goldeneye.  Yeeeeeee-haw!  The Gillhams plan to 
include Arnold's hybrid in their next bulletin.  

Arnold's sighting brings the number of documented records of this cross 
to five--mine was the fourth.  What are the odds that two of the five 
known records in the world came from Utah and from members of the same 
birding club?!?  Is it because we have hybrid duck karma up here?  Yea, 
verily; that's the answer.  I'm not going to suggest this hybrid might 
be more common than documented thus far, because that explanation is 
entirely too boring.   

No matter what, this chapter in the hybrid duck's tale is providing me a 
needed a break from all these serious ID challenges of late.  Here goes 
the rest of it.  I can't keep calling this hybrid a Bufflehead x Common 
Goldeneye or Common Goldeneye x Bufflehead--the name is too long.  I'm 
going to combine both parent species' 4-letter bird banding acronyms to 
create a new name.  It sounds something like a breakfast cereal.  
Hereafter, this hybrid shall be called the COGOBUFF.   

And that, as Forrest Gump says, is all I have to say about that.  

Kris

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