Immature male hoody

My best shot of a Hooded Merganser!

(So far)

Funny story: somehow I remembered that female hoodies had the same caramel brown colour all over, as their crests and eyes. So at first I believed that this individual was somehow an adolescent male (really late for the season, but possible) or intersex.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that my past photos show all females with this same colour scheme! What can I say, brains are weird.

EDIT: this is an adolescent male. You can tell from the paler yellowish eye (vs females’ rich brown), all-dark bill (vs females’ partly yellow) and more contrasty grey body (vs females’ more uniform brown). We live and learn!