Why all the summmer ducks are brown and what to do about it

Doug Robinson, PhD

Tue, Aug 20, 2024 7:00 PM

Late summer is when birders look forward to the arrival of migrating shorebirds: lots of brown shorebirds. But we see brown ducks and we turn away. Why? Duck identification is usually fairly easy, especially when we are looking at males in their spectacular plumages during winter. Spring and summer roll around and those gaudy males turn brown. Why do they change plumage? How do we apply the correct names to those confusing brown summer birds?

Doug will talk about the biology behind the dramatic plumage changes and give us some tips on identification of a few of the brown ducks we can use as exemplars for getting the names right on all the other ducks, too.

Join us for a fun and enlightening evening of sorting out those confusing brown ducks!

The livestream can be found at our YouTube channel.