Ring-necked Duck, female

Aythya collaris

Ring-necked Duck · San Diego · 6 March 2026

A female Ring-necked Duck in a relaxed, low pose on a San Diego pond in March, wintering in Southern California after a summer on a lake in the boreal north. It is a diving duck of small, sheltered fresh water, and a park pond suits it.

The peaked head shape carries even at rest and is often the fastest way to pick this species out of a mixed raft of diving ducks before any plumage detail is visible; the white ring near the tip of the bill and the pale eye-ring are the rest. The "ring-necked" of the name is a faint chestnut collar on the male that is almost never visible in the field - the bill ring would have been the better name.