I'm just becoming interested in observing birds, so don't know anything
about them. Would very much appreciate help identifying some gorgeous
birds I saw today at Green Lake in Seattle.

Had just completed a walk around the lake, watching mallards, coots,
widgeons and gulls, when I turned back toward the water and saw six
gorgeous ducks unlike any I had ever seen before. Here is what they
looked like:

About the size of a coot.

Gorgeous black head and black breast.

Gray back.

White sides.

A bluish-white bill.

When I say "gorgeous black head", the feathers were so deep, black and
luxurious that they looked like what I'd imagine black mink looks like.

The gray backs were made up of finely varigated black and white feathers.

ALSO: With the group was another bird, very much like these, only
instead of a black mink head, it was a brown mink head, brown breast,
mostly brown elsewhere except for a bright streak of angular white
along each side.

So, what were these birds, and from where did they come, and to where
are they bound?

--Grant Fjermedal
Seattle

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