Tufted Duck

The tufted duck is a small diving duck. The adult male is black apart from white flanks, with a blue-grey bill, golden-yellow eyes and a thin drooping crest on the back of the head, the tuft that gives the species its name. The female is brown with paler flanks and is easier to confuse with other diving ducks; some show white around the bill base like a scaup, though never as extensive. Her call is a harsh growling karr, usually in flight, while males whistle softly in courtship. (Wikipedia, general species account)

The species breeds across temperate and northern Eurasia and is migratory over most of its range, wintering in the milder south and west of Europe and in southern Asia, where it forms large flocks on open water. Its range is thought to have grown with new gravel-pit lakes and the spread of freshwater mussels, a favourite food. The female builds a ground nest lined with grass, reeds and down, often on an island, and incubates a clutch of 8–11 greenish-grey eggs for about 25 days. (Wikipedia, general species account)