A smaller diving duck that can obtain food in deep water if necessary. The male has a purplish-black, iridescent head, yellow eyes, black back and breast, and a vertical white wedge on the sides. The female is brown with a white eye ring. Both male and female have a crown that comes to a point in profile, gray bills with a distinctive light ring at the base and tip, and a chestnut neck ring that is usually difficult to observe. Ring-necked ducks breed in the northern U.S. and Canada. Traveling in small, loose flocks of about a dozen, they winter in the lakes, ponds, rivers, and bays of the southern U.S.
Wetland
Ring-necked Ducks breed in northern North America and spend winters in southern and western North America, northern Central America, and the Caribbean, often on freshwater. Much of the population migrates from central Canada to the southeastern United States, staging along the way in Minnesota and other parts of the upper Midwest.
Abundant
Diurnal
Omnivores feeding on insects and plant matter
Ring-necked Ducks feed by diving underwater, rather than by tipping up as “dabbling” ducks do. When diving, they leap forward in an arc to plunge underwater, and they swim using only their feet for propulsion. They tend to remain in pairs during the breeding season but group into flocks of several to several thousand during migration and winter.
Ring-necked ducks are both herbivores and predators on aquatic invertebrates and have a significant impact on those populations where they forage. Eggs, young, and adult ring-necked ducks are a source of food for many predators.
Least Concern
