Redheads are medium-sized ducks with smooth, round heads. Only breeding males have this species' trademark cinnamon-colored heads. Females are covered in light brown plumage. Breeding males also have a black neck, breast and tail, and a gray body. Both males and females have moderately large bills that are colored gray with a black tip. Non-breeding males look like females, except these males’ heads are a warmer shade of brown.

During the winter and migration, redheads are found in large flocks mixed with other duck species like canvasbacks, wigeons, scaups and American coots.

Redheads make a cat-like, wheezy meow sound during courtship. Males will also make a low, guttural growling sound when threatened by other redheads. The females’ calls are a more traditional quack.

Many female redheads do not make a nest themselves. Instead, these ducks can be parasitic brooders, dropping all their eggs in another duck’s nest and leaving their ducklings to be hatched and raised by the other duck. More commonly, females will lay several eggs in other ducks’ nests and then also lay and raise a clutch on their own.

Sometimes several females chose the same nest and create a “dump nest.” These nests can become filled with up to 87 eggs and the eggs are never incubated.

Females that do build a nest chose a site in marshes and wetlands among dense vegetation. The nest is usually made over shallow water. Redhead nests are bulky, and are made using dead grasses and reeds, and lined with soft feathers.

While it is difficult to determine what a normal clutch size is for these ducks, it is estimated a redhead will lay between seven and 14 eggs. Females who raise chicks will incubate their eggs for 22 to 28 days. Females lead their chicks away from the nest one to two days after hatching. Redhead ducklings can feed themselves right away and can fly at about 2 months old.

While considered a diving duck, redheads will sometimes forage for their food on the water’s surface like a dabbling duck. Redheads usually prefer to forage in shallower waters, where they eat a variety of aquatic plants and insects. They prefer to eat a plant’s leaves, stems, seeds and roots. Occasionally, redheads will eat mollusks and small fish.

Redhead ducks are currently listed as a species of least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. While they are popular among duck hunters, hunting limits are updated per species every year to help safeguard against population declines.

Adult redhead ducks weigh between 1.5 and 3 pounds (0.63 and 1.5 kilograms), about the same weight as a small chicken. They are between 16.5 and 21 inches (42 and 54 centimeters) long with a roughly 30-inch (76-centimeter) wingspan. 

Redheads winter on the Gulf Coast, on the southeastern coastline of the United States, and in the Bahamas, Cuba, Guatemala, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Though, it is estimated about 80% of the North American population spends their winter on the Laguna Madre lagoon in Texas and throughout northern Mexico. Their wintering grounds and migration stopovers are primarily on lakes, reservoirs and bays, including throughout the Great Lakes region.

These ducks are frequently seen in the Prairie Pothole Region in the Midwest during breeding season. Redheads also breed on Canada’s prairies and in marshes throughout the mountain region in the western U.S.