Bye, bye Long-tailed Duck

Just two last pics of the Long-tailed Duck that remained on the Arkansas River near Canon City until today. The last I saw this duck was when some other diving ducks flushed and flew off. I looked for it twice this afternoon and it wasn't in the area.

I am told that this was likely a female even though it has a long tail (they do during summer breeding season and this one seems to have retained much of it's alternate plumage). These pics are from my new DSLR camera, a Canon Rebel xti with a 70-300 IS USM lens and 1.4 teleconverter--it's a lot of camera (literally as it weighs a lot more than my Panasonic Lumix). SeEtta