This species is on the conservation watch list due to declining numbers. However, they currently have two different breeding populations. One is in North America and the second is in South America. Fun Fact: Hooded Mergansers are able to see underwater, which helps them when they forage for food. 22. Red-breasted Merganser To dive deep into the water, buffleheads squeeze their wings and plumage close to their body to release any air, then give a small leap forward and plunge downward. Livezey, B. C. (1998). "A phylogenetic analysis of modern pochards (Anatidae: Aythini)" (PDF). The Auk. 113 (1): 74–93. doi: 10.2307/4088937. JSTOR 4088937. Lesser Scaups are medium-sized diving birds that are pretty similar and often mistaken for Greater Scaups. What makes them different is that Lesser Scaups have a small group of hairs at the tip of their heads. It makes their head look steeper than Greater Scaups.

Thomas, D.B.; McGraw, K.J.; Butler, M.W.; Carrano, M.T.; Madden, O.; James, H.F. (2014). "Ancient origins and multiple appearances of carotenoid-pigmented feathers in birds". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 281 (1788): 20140806. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2014.0806. PMC 4083795. PMID 24966316. Nests of Gadwalls are often hard to find because they’re hidden in dense vegetation near water. They are made with grass and weeds and lined with feathers.There may be as many as fifteen eggs in a nest.The female incubates them for about twenty-seven days until they’re hatched. You can find Buffleheads in small lakes and ponds with nearby poplar and aspen forests during the breeding season. In the winter, they move to protected coastal waters or shallow bays and inlets.The female lays eight to ten eggs and incubates them for twenty-five days to a month. The young leave the nest after hatching and can already feed themselves. The female takes care of them for about three more weeks. Their specialized bill contains grooves that lets them filter microscopic plants and animals out of the warm water they live in. These plants and animals make up the majority of their diet.

Britain is a major wintering area for wildfowl, attracting birds from Greenland in the west to Siberia in the east. This species appears to have an omnivorous diet. Findings from a dead specimen included aquatic weeds and mollusk shells. It is unknown what food types they prefer, but the pink in their plumage may provide a clue since the carotenoid pigments are typically dietarily derived.Females and males can easily be differentiated from each other. Males have a lighter head and a yellow bill, whereas females have a darker head and a pale olive bill. Mallards upend in shallow water, feed from the surface, and sometimes dive. They also graze on dry land, and forage for food in fields and woodland. These species winter in Britain in large numbers, with more birds present in years when the weather conditions elsewhere in Europe are particularly poor. Mallards also fly in from Russia, though the majority come from Iceland and northern Europe. Distribution: During the breeding season, they’re most common northwards from the Northumberland coast and off the west coast of Scotland. During the winter, their range expands to include areas along the east and south coasts, parts of the southwest coast and some areas of the Welsh coast.