Taken by Mason Cain at The Nature Conservancy's South Cape May Meadows Preserve on November 16th, 2025.
The Buffle Head Duck is North America's smallest Diving Duck, and when I saw them they seemed substantially smaller than the Mallards (another type of duck) swimming around them.
Female Bufflehead Duck
They fly north into Northern-America,and Canada, to breed every year. They nest tree cavities, such as old Northern Flicker Woodpecker holes.
Each winter they will migrate south to coastal bay's, salt water ponds, rivers and tributaries. They never leave North America, but will go as far south as Texas and Mexico.
The name diving ducky is accurate; they seemed to be under water for a minute at a time. Every few minutes, they dove under the water trying to find aquatic invertebrates to eat, and this made it very hard to photograph them! The Mallards were easy.
Unlike a Bufflehead, Mallards don't fully submerge.
If you want to help Bufflehead Ducks be sure to help preserve, and improve, the quality of your local wetland by planting Rain Gardens and even using less fertilizer's!
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