Red-Breasted Merganser

It was a grey morning today along the waterfront below Dunrobin Castle with the occasional rain and little to see until....

....I spotted this pair of ducks which looked likely to be red-breasted mergansers. They were courting, the male....

....alternately stretching out his neck and....

....flopping onto his side while, at the same time, they were trying to put distance between themselves and me.

While the pictures are disappointing, the merganser being at extreme range of my camera, I'm quite thrilled to have seen this courtship display.

There was something else, too. Usually, the male merganser has the distinct white collar seen in this pair, photographed some years ago in Kilchoan Bay, but this morning's male lacked it, so I assume he's either an interesting local variant or an immigrant.