And why have I never heard of it before?
I was looking at pictures of Wood Ducks at The Cornell Labs All About Birds site.
I noticed a picture of an “Eclipse male” Wood Duck. I had just seen that bird at Neary Lagoon! I had assumed it was a juvenile Wood Duck. (In recent visits, Katherine and I had seen several baby ducks there.)
I Googled “eclipse plumage” to find out more. I learned that many waterfowl undergo a “simultaneous molt” after breeding. They lose all their primary feathers at the same time–as apposed to “sequential molt” where flight feathers are lost one at a time. Ducks undergoing simultaneous molt are unable to fly for up to forty days. The feathers that come in – eclipse – allow them to camouflage themselves in the wetlands where they live.
I had also seen an eclipsed Mallard at Neary on that visit but I hadn’t recognized it as such. I again thought it was a juvenile.
I could tell from the bit of green on this Mallard’s head that it was a male. I learned, however, that a fully eclipsed male Mallard looks like the female. From BirdNation, I learned to tell the difference by looking at the bill: the male has a yellow bill while the female has an orange bill with black markings. I needed to go through my pictures from that day to see if I’d misidentified an eclipsed male.
I had.
This was one I’d misidentified.
Sorry, dude. My bad.
The next photo shows three Wood Ducks in various stages of the transition to eclipse plumage.
Another picture of a Wood Duck.
It was exciting to learn about eclipse plumage but a little disheartening to think it was happening last year and I never noticed! 😂