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Order: Anseriformes Family: Anatidae Chick Type: Precocial (Parental attendance) Type of Duck: Diving Redheads breed in the northwestern parts of the United States, eastern half of Alaska and western half of Canada. They winter along the pacific coast, south central states, and eastern states and Mexico. Their diet consists of aquatic vegetation (muskgrass, leaves, tubers, duckweeds) and aquatic invertebrates. The breeding season lasts from April to June. Female Redheads lay 9 - 15 eggs and the incubation time is around 24 - 28 days. This species practices facultative brood parasitism, meaning they sometime lay their eggs in the nests of similar species. Ornithologists feel that this could lead to obligatory brood parasitism, which is when they always lay eggs in the nests of other species (Gill 2003). Eighty percent of the North American Redhead duck population overwinters in the Laguna Madre ecosystem, part of that ecoystem is in the boundries of Laguna Atascosa national Wildlife Refuge in Rio Hondo, Texas. Redheads belong in the subfamily of Aythyinae, which look like dabbling ducks but they have some DNA and structual differences. Members of this subfamily mainly feed by diving. They are able to get resources that dabbling ducks can't reach. |
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