Bufflehead landing

Despite some range maps that suggest otherwise, the Bufflehead Duck is a winter resident of Kootenay Lake. It is also both our smallest and (some have asserted) our cutest duck. 

Curiously despite an initial assessment that the male plumage is strictly black and white, it can be surprisingly colourful. In some lightings, the black on its head becomes iridescent. See pictures in a CBC trifling, and fetching birds. Indeed, even in the picture below, some green appears on an otherwise black neck. 

Are those characteristics the reason I have made this posting? Well, no. I just was captivated by this view of a male Bufflehead Duck landing on the water near the mouth of Kokanee Creek.