What is that black and white duck? Like all northern places, winter arrives early in Alaska. When the leaves turn yellow and orange, stiff breezes blow them off the trees. Heavy rain and turbulent wind mark October and November, and this is when the winter ducks arrive to wait out the storms in sheltered coves.
Thousands of sea ducks overwinter in the deep, narrow bays and coves on Kodiak Island, and several species are year-round residents. The species appear distinctly different when viewed close-up, but they can be difficult to distinguish from a distance. Over the next few posts, I will cover a few common sea ducks we see near Kodiak in the winter.
Harlequin ducks, with their showy plumage, are the easiest sea ducks to identify. They are small diving ducks. Males weigh approximately 1.4 lbs. (650 g), and females average 1.3 lbs. (575 g). Males are brightly colored with slate-blue bodies, white bands, and collars bordered by black lines on the chest and neck. They have a large crescent in front of the eye, a white spot behind the eye, and a white stripe along their neck. A black streak bordered by white and chestnut brown runs along the top of the head, and the flanks are chestnut brown. Their dark brown wings sport an iridescent blue patch on the inner edge. Females are not nearly as colorful. They have a brown body with a white belly, a white patch behind the ear, and white patches in front of the eye.
There are two populations of harlequin ducks in North America. The eastern population breeds from northern Quebec and Labrador south into Newfoundland and northern New Brunswick. This population winters in southern Canada and northern New England. The western population breeds along the rivers in interior south coastal Alaska, Yukon Territory, British Columbia, southwest Alberta, and south to the Rocky and Cascade Mountain regions of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and western Montana and Wyoming.
Males and females return to the same breeding and wintering areas each year. Once they reach the wintering area, the ducks form pairs, and pairs often reunite annually. Females breed after they are two years old. As soon as they reach the breeding area, females build their nests on the ground, on small cliff ledges, in tree cavities, or on stumps. They often choose nesting sites on islands in streams and pick places where vegetation or other cover conceals the nest. The female lays five to six eggs in the down-lined nest. She incubates the eggs for approximately twenty-nine days, and the young can feed themselves immediately after hatching. Young harlequins can fly when they are forty-five to fifty-five days old.
Males leave the breeding area soon after the female lays the eggs. The males then begin to molt and cannot fly for twenty-five to thirty days while they shed their old flight feathers and grow new ones. The females molt four to eight weeks after the males.
Harlequins are good swimmers, and they feed by picking up insects, snails, amphipods, fish eggs, and crabs from the bottom of a river or near shore in the ocean.
Oddly, harlequins suffer more broken bones than any other duck species, and by X-raying museum specimens, researchers have learned that most adults have endured multiple healed fractures.
While it is difficult to determine the age of a duck, the oldest recorded harlequin was a male in British Columbia. He was at least twenty years and nine months old when he was identified by his leg band in 2014. Researchers had banded him in Alberta in 1995.
The western population of harlequins is much larger than the eastern population, and biologists estimate its size at 150,000 to 250,000 birds. While scientists do not entirely understand the movements of harlequins between Alaska’s wintering and breeding areas, They believe the bulk of the western population winters in the Aleutian Islands.
A harlequin duck is one of nature’s most stunning creatures. Looking through my binoculars at a harlequin floating in a patch of sunlight, I can hardly believe I am staring at a wild duck and not an intricate piece of art.
Read more about Kodiak Wildlife in my book Kodiak Island Wildlife.
My true crime book, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier, was a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for the best true crime book of 2023.
Robin Barefield is the author of five Alaska wilderness mystery novels: Big Game, Murder Over Kodiak, The Fisherman’s Daughter, Karluk Bones, and Massacre at Bear Creek Lodge. She is also the author of the non-fiction book Kodiak Island Wildlife and the true-crime book Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier. Sign up below to subscribe to her free monthly newsletter on true crime and mystery in Alaska, and listen to her podcast, Murder and Mystery in the Last Frontier.
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