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Hardhead
Aythya australis
-31.9745, 115.868
Field Notes
Description:
The Hardhead is a medium-sized duck which appears mainly chocolate brown when swimming, with a white undertail. In flight, the underwings are white, edged with brown. A white breast patch is obvious in flight and when standing in the shallows. The bill is pale blue on the tip. Males have a distinct white eye, while the eye is brown in females. When flying, the wings make a distinctive whirring sound. Hardheads sit low on the water and are diving ducks. This species is also known as the White-eyed Duck, Barwing or Brownhead.
Habitat:
Swan River South Perth
Notes:
The Hardhead possesses one of the strangest names among Australian birds. It was formerly known as the ‘White-eyed Duck’, but this feature is present only on drakes, with females having dark eyes. Nevertheless, this discrepancy has never been an impediment to naming birds in the past — female Blackbirds are never black, for instance. The name ‘Hardhead’ has nothing to do with the density of the duck’s cranium, but stems from early taxidermists who found that the head was the most difficult part of the duck to process.
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