Unidentified duck

[spencer77]

Hi everyone, This is my first post on here & I'm hoping someone can help me, please. I was walking along the North Walsham & Dilham canal this morning, where I startled a bird in the reeds. My initial thought was that it was a female Mandarin duck, which would have been unusual in itself. But this bird had a distinctive white ring around it's eye & swam very low in the water. It dived under the water for up to 10-20 seconds at a time. When it dived, it flapped before going under. I've been a keen amateur birdwatcher for years & can't identify this bird at all. I'm puzzled!!!

[RoyW]

It's hard to be sure from a brief written description, but I would suggest that a female Pochard was a possibility. These can have very variable amounts of white around the eye (often extending behind the eye like on a female Mandarin) + the rest of the plumage can be variable as well.

One example (borrowed from the WAB Gallery):