You can't see until you look. I've been recently looking at the birds on the little lake that comes up to my back yard. I'm seeing birds that I have never seen before. The Buffleheads were out yesterday morning along with a couple of Mallards and an odd duck that I hadn't seen before. It was black and white like the little Bufflehead females but more the size and shape of the Mallards. But, unlike the Mallards, it was a diving duck. Out with the binoculars and bird book.

It's not easy telling some of these birds apart. At first I thought it might be a Lesser Scaup (Who thinks up theses names?). But after repeated views through binoculars, bird book, and web sites it turned out to be a male Ring-necked Duck

The picture is an Audubon. The following text is also by Audubon

The Ring-necked Duck is abundant on all our western waters during autumn and winter. It is also met with along our Atlantic coasts; but there, although I have seen many individuals on the Chesapeake and other large arms of the sea, it is by no means so plentiful as in the interior. Its flesh is excellent, equalling in my opinion that of any other Duck; and when it has been feeding along the margins of rivers, creeks, or ponds for a few weeks, it becomes very fat, tender, and juicy, and has none of the fishy flavour of those species which are in the habit of diving deep for their food. In shape, the Tufted Duck, or Ring-bill, as it is called in Kentucky, resembles the Scaup or Flocking Fowl, but is plumper and more rounded.
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After about a half hour the Buffleheads and Mallards were gone, leaving the Ring-necked Duck. And then he was gone. No sign of him today.

Ring-necked Duck
Ducks Unlimited
Ring-necked (Aythya collaris)