COLUMN: Meet the long-tailed duck, an obscure winter visitor to Oregon

Hayden Island is in the Columbia between Portland and Vancouver, Washington.  Bill Vollmer photographed this duck near the Holiday Inn on Hayden Island.

That is a long-tailed duck, not well known around Oregon if you’re not a birder who keeps lists. Here it’s a winter only species that doesn’t come this far south in large numbers. If you’d like a look at one keep in mind its particular preference for habitat: coastal marine waters…