bufflehead

noun

buf·​fle·​head ˈbə-fəl-ˌhed How to pronounce bufflehead (audio)
: a small North American diving duck (Bucephala albeola)

Examples of bufflehead in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web
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In all, birders on the October tour spotted (or overheard) 78 different bird species: Royal terns, buffleheads, trumpeter swans, American-Golden plovers. Baltimore Sun Staff, Baltimore Sun, 3 Nov. 2024 Some species, including wood ducks, buffleheads and mergansers, will stay in the forested areas of Wisconsin and Minnesota to nest in tree cavities. Madeline Heim, Journal Sentinel, 22 Apr. 2024 Those wishing to target buffleheads, or for that matter, canvasbacks or goldeneyes, should set a handful of drake bufflehead decoys off to one side of the spread. M.d. Johnson, Field & Stream, 30 Nov. 2023 Details here and here. BEACH WALK Beach season starts now: Grab your binoculars to check out sandpipers, eiders, buffleheads at Norman Bird Sanctuary’s stroll on Third Beach. Lauren Daley, BostonGlobe.com, 25 May 2023 Highlights included a sooty shearwater and 16 Wilson’s storm-petrels off George’s Island in Boston Harbor, a bufflehead in Winthrop, a least bittern at Belle Isle in East Boston, and a hooded merganser and an alder flycatcher at Millennium Park in West Roxbury. BostonGlobe.com, 31 July 2021 But some of my best duck hunting memories are of bufflehead swarming a mallard spread on a windy lake in Wisconsin, gadwall dropping from the stratosphere to get into a half-frozen pothole in North Dakota, and teal and shovelers screaming through a pass-shoot in Mexico. Alex Robinson, Outdoor Life, 18 Dec. 2020 In an all-day coastal marsh sit, three of us downed a single lesser scaup and a lone bufflehead. T. Edward Nickens, Field & Stream, 1 Jan. 2021 Within 100 yards of the trailhead, a blue surgical mask caught the sun in a thicket of reeds, a flock of bufflehead ducks paddling through the calm waters in a V formation just a few yards away. Scott Wilson, Washington Post, 11 Dec. 2020

Word History

Etymology

archaic English buffle buffalo + English head

First Known Use

1731, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of bufflehead was in 1731

Dictionary Entries Near bufflehead

Cite this Entry

“Bufflehead.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bufflehead. Accessed 12 Dec. 2024.

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