Field Notes
The tufted duck is easy to love for one small detail — the thin crest that trails off the back of the male's glossy black head, giving the bird a slightly comic profile above its clean black-and-white body.
I have photographed them in India at Jamnagar and Gajoldoba, and, unexpectedly, as far away as Edinburgh in Scotland — a reminder of how widely this little diving duck ranges across the northern world. Like all divers, they test your timing, slipping underwater just as the composition comes together.
