My roommate Kasey came home from her parents home earlier this evening, and I pulled in just as she did. She waved me over and pointed in the bed of her pickup...and there lay a dead duck.
She said she was driving along, and saw flash of white in her rear view. She didn't think much of it, maybe a piece of garbage or a box flapping around...but when she got home and checked- it was a dead duck! What are the chances of a duck somehow flying into the bed of her truck as she was driving along? The poor thing's neck is broken and there is some blood on the feathers...but other than that it's probably "stuffable" if she or I wanted to pay to bring it to a taxidermist.
And here's the proud owner, with her new pet "Crash"!
A typical Sunday...blowing off reading and homework to ID a duck in your living room!
Beautiful coloring of the feet
The verdict: Common Goldeneye- Bucephala clangula
Adult male in breeding plumage
Thank you to The Sibley Guide to Birds!
And now that we've each plucked a few feathers for our collections, we're going to bring Crash to school tomorrow and donate him to the Big Freezer of Death, and hopefully someone can do a dissection on him this spring for us!