Oxyura jamaicensis

Groups: O. jamaicensis [Ruddy Duck] and O. ferruginea (Eyton, 1838) [Andean Duck]. The two groups were formerly treated as separate species (AOU 1998) based largely on Livezey (1995), who proposed that they were not sister species, although prior to this they were considered conspecific (AOU 1983). Molecular data indicate that jamaicensis, ferruginea, and andina, the latter a population of ferruginea in Colombia sometimes treated as a subspecies, form a tight clade (McCracken and Sorenson 2005). The population andina consists of a wide range of intermediate phenotypic forms (Fjeldså 1986, Donegan et al. 2015) and shows genetic evidence of extensive hybridization between jamaicensis and ferruginea (McCracken and Sorenson 2005, Muñoz-Fuentes et al. 2013) (AOS 2021).

BREEDING: [jamaicensis group] In North America, the northern prairies are the most important breeding areas. Nesting occurs in east-central Alaska (casually), and from central and northeastern British Columbia, southwestern Mackenzie, northern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan, and central Manitoba east across southern Canada to Nova Scotia, south to southern California, central Arizona, southern New Mexico, western and southern Texas, southwestern Louisiana, and northern Florida, with scattered, sporatic, or former breeding in several other areas in U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Breeds also in El Salvador, the West Indies (Bahamas [New Providence], Greater Antilles, and the Lesser Antilles south to Grenada). NON-BREEDING: [jamaicensis group] in North America, winters primarily on the Pacific coast (mainly California, especially the Salton Sea area), secondarily on the Atlantic coast, and with about 20% of the population in the interior of the continent (the majority in Texas and Louisiana, plus a concentration along the Mississippi River between Mississippi and Arkansas). Winters southward from southern British Columbia, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, and the Great Lakes, and on the Atlantic coast mainly in Chesapeake Bay and south through Pamlico Sound, south throughout the southern U.S. and most of Mexico to Honduras (sight record for Nicaragua), and throughout the Bahamas. Areas in North America where migrants may concentrate include the Klamath Basin in northern California, Minidoka NWR in Idaho, marshes adjacent to the Great Salt Lake, Malheur NWR in Oregon, Carson Sink in Nevada, and the region extending from North Dakota across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and southeastern Michigan to Chesapeake Bay. RESIDENT: [jamaicensis group] in the Antilles and South America. [ferruginea group] in South America in the Andes from Colombia south to western Argentina and southern Chile. Introduced and established in England, where numbers dramatically reduced by control operations, and in western Europe, including France, Spain, and the Netherlands, and in Morocco. Casual in Hawaii, southeastern Alaska, southern Yukon, and Bermuda. (AOU 1983, Sibley and Monroe 1990). See Bellrose (1980) for further details on the breeding and winter distribution in North America.

Past population declines are attributed to hunting, drought in the breeding range, and drainage of wetland breeding areas.