The Long-tailed Ducks of Lake Ontario

 

As always, click the photo to enlarge

The view of downtown Toronto, from Tommy Thompson Park. Sometimes known as the "Leslie Street Spit", this place extends about three miles out into Lake Ontario. The park is a case of making lemonade from lemons. The origin of the "spit" is dredged material from the harbor, which began in 1959. Over the years, millions of cubic meters of dredge spoil were pumped into diked embayments, creating the "islands" that form the park. Over time, Tommy Thompson Park developed into a legendary birding site.

Shauna and I spent most of a day here, and the action came hot and heavy. Scads of waterfowl of many species use the surrounding lake and often offer great photo ops. It was a decent workout, too, as we ended up hiking 7.1 miles, armed with our heavy gear. It was worth every step, though.

A young Gray Birch (Betula populifolia) forest has sprung up in places. It was one of relatively few native plants that I noticed. I bet when Toronto experiences redpoll irruptions, this is a good place to be. The birch produces copious catkins, a favorite food source of redpolls.

Probably the coolest non-waterfowl bird that we saw was a Snowy Owl. It, unfortunately, was the victim of overzealous birders chasing it around and flushing it.

Three drake Long-tailed Ducks (Clangula hyemalis) land among a small flock. Some Common Goldeneyes (Bucephala clangula) are in the foreground.

We saw hundreds of Long-tailed Ducks from Tommy Thompson Park vantage points, maybe thousands. Evidence from aerial surveys suggest that as many as 700,000 Long-tailed Ducks winter on Lake Ontario. That's approaching 10% of the overall North American population, although the total population is just an estimate. Long-tailed Ducks are tough to get a handle on, due to their remote northerly nesting locations, and often difficult to access/survey wintering grounds.

A hen Long-tailed Duck swoops low over two Red-breasted Mergansers and three Common Goldeneye. Both of those species are also very common here.

Three drake Long-tailed Ducks lead a hen. This species is often very active, either feeding via long dives, scoot/flying short distances across the water to new feeding sites or just making rapid flights in small squadrons. One can often hear the baying of flocks from quite some distance.

Three hens drop into the water in near-perfect synchronicity. Tommy Thompson can be a goldmine for in-flight shots of waterfowl. I was using my Canon R5 and 800mm f/5.6 lens. The day before, I used the same rig but with the 1.4x teleconverter attached, for a focal reach of 1120mm. However, the addition of the teleconverter leads to more missed shots and reduces sharpness somewhat. In general, I've found that just using the bare 800mm delivers a noticeably higher rate of keepers, especially with fast-moving species such as waterfowl.

A hen Long-tailed Duck preens her feathers. I find that I often go for hen waterfowl first, in regard to picture-making. After all, everyone generally prioritizes males, so there is less imagery of the hens. Yet female ducks are often incredibly ornate in feather detailing and coloration. Long-tailed hens also have a lovely little wren-like tail.

A hen shows off one of her giant webbed feet. That foot is the size of her head. Long-tailed Ducks are known to dive to at least 215 feet (unfortunately, because that's the deepest that one has been caught in a deepwater fishing seine). But the undoubtedly can go deeper, perhaps much deeper. It takes big, webbed feet to dive to such depths.

Another view of a hen Long-tailed Duck, with her all-dark bill.

A young male, sporting its mostly pink bill. It was a treat to be able to watch so many Long-tailed Ducks and enjoy their calls and behavior. They're highly social and mixed flocks of adults of both sexes, along with juveniles, were the norm.

We hit about a dozen lakefront sites, from Grimsby, Ontario to Toronto. Just about all of them produced lots of birds, although good photographic opportunities varied from site to site. If I were to do another winter western Lake Ontario trip - which I will - and only had two full days - as we did on this trip - I'd likely just hit two spots. They'd be Fifty Point Conservation Area near Hamilton, where we had lots of action, and Tommy Thompson Park. But we always chat up locals and met many on this trip. They often have great ideas for places that weren't on our radar screen, so one should be ready to adapt plans based on new intel. But visits to Fifty Point and Tommy Thompson should yield oodles of cool photo ops.

The "oldsquaws" of Lake Ontario

I made two northern forays this winter to Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. This vast holding is a treasure trove of cold weather goodies, and I was there to see beasts like the American marten, along with boreal birds that included both crossbills, gray jay, spruce grouse, and more. All in a striking wintry landscape. On the second trip, Debbie DiCarlo and I were scouting locations and details for potential future photo tours. We know it would make for a fantastic location, and could guarantee lots of fascinating photo subjects, but would anyone wish to deal with the cold? It was minus 24 F one morning, but normally temperatures are not that crisp, although Florida this place is not. Nonetheless, it's easy to dress for cold success and well worth the effort. For our current photo tours, CLICK HERE.

On both of these excursions, we made time to spend part of a day along the western side of Lake Ontario, which is enroute. There are numerous excellent lake access points from Hamilton to Toronto, and ducks abound. Lake Ontario almost never freezes due to a variety of factors, thus hardy fowl find it a reliable food-rich wintering ground. Of special interest to me are the scads of overwintering long-tailed ducks (formerly known as "oldsquaw"). The eastern waters of Ohio's section of Lake Erie are less than a hundred miles to the west, yet this duck is a rarity with us. But not so on Lake Ontario, where they occur by the thousands in winter.

A small portion of a massive flock of long-tailed ducks wings by Bronte, Ontario, not far west of Toronto. At one point, at least a thousand birds were in sight.

A handsome drake long-tailed duck crests a wave in the chilly waters of Lake Ontario. These ducks are deep divers and not daunted by the depths of this lake, which averages 283 feet deep. Long-tailed can dive that deep, or nearly so, to reach mussel beds.

Another drake shows off his pectoral muscles, while ice drifts in the background. I never fail to be amazed by the hardiness of such beasts, and the amazing insulating qualities of their feathers. You or I would not last long if we fell into this drink.

A juvenile long-tailed duck floats before an older female. At some places, such as the pier at the marina in downtown Bronte, the birds are exceptionally approachable. Indeed, they seem curious about people and would occasionally approach quite closely.

It wasn't only long-tailed ducks, of course. Common goldeneye are also common, and just as cold-tolerant. Here, a male goldeneye fronts a group of greater scaup - a hen on the left, and three drakes.

Here's a drake greater scaup caught in flight. Note the white wingstripe extends well out onto the primary flight feathers, and the birds is big-billed with a nicely rounded head. The much less hardy lesser scaup is quite similar, but nearly all the birds that I saw up there where greaters, as would be expected in mid-winter.

Yet another treat were numerous white-winged scoters. This female posed closely in gorgeous light but there were plenty of the striking coal-black adult males about. This species, like the long-tailed duck, is a deep diver and right at home on deepwater Lake Ontario.

Midwinter birder/photographer visitors to Lake Ontario will likely have to deal with very frosty temperatures, but it's worth it for the duck show, and photographic opportunities.

Frigid winter drove rare waterfowl our way

Frigid winter drove rare waterfowl our way

Columbus Dispatch
March 16, 2014

NATURE
Jim McCormac

This winter’s Arctic freeze brought a passel of unusual birds to Ohio.

There was an incredible influx of red-necked grebes, diving waterbirds that are usually rare in Ohio waters.

Scores of white-winged scoters turned up throughout the winter, wherever open water could be found. The scoter is a sea duck, and most of them winter in marine waters.

Best of all, perhaps, were the near-record numbers of long-tailed ducks. Dozens of the sea ducks turned up from Lake Erie to the Ohio River.

A drake long-tailed duck is a visual treat arguably unrivaled in the showy pageantry of the waterfowl world. The duck is pied in patterns of white, black and gray.

Most astonishing are the tail streamers. They resemble a pair of feathery scissors tacked to the rear of the bird. The duck often holds its streamer feathers, which are the length of its body, high in the air. The female is far more muted in tone, and hens lack the namesake elongated tail.

Long-tailed ducks are often heard before they’re seen. They’re noisy fowl, and the males create a constant clamor when together. The long-tailed duck’s former name — oldsquaw — suggests the species’ penchant for constant grumbling.

So do many of the dozens of colloquial appellations: old wife; old granny; scoldenore; and, my favorite, the Cree name Hah-ha-way. The latter is onomatopoeia: The name mimics the bird’s call.

The collective din of a pack of long-tailed ducks is a thing of aural beauty, at least to my ear. Brief clucks are punctuated by drawn-out hoarse scolding yells. A coarse music, perhaps, but an interesting chorus that rises above that of the other fowl. A big pack can be heard for a half-mile or more.
The birds are further distinguished by their incredible diving ability. Long-tailed ducks routinely descend to 200 feet.

That would be akin to diving from the top of the Ohio Judicial Center’s 200-foot-tall roof to the bottom of the adjacent Scioto River, then returning to the roof. The birds are lured to the depths by tasty crustaceans, fish and other animals.

Prolonged bitter weather this winter almost froze the Great Lakes solid.

During a typical winter, the lakes have plenty of open areas. The openings support many diving ducks — including long-tailed ducks, red-necked grebes and white-winged scoters.

The brutal winter froze them out, and the birds were forced inland, where bird-watchers could easily observe them.

By the time you read this, the thaw will have spread north, and the hardy long-tailed ducks will be pushing relentlessly north to their Arctic breeding grounds.

Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first and third Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com.

Sea duck invasion: Why?

The view from Deer Creek last Sunday morning; air temperature a frosty 14 degrees. That's the Deer Creek dam in the backdrop, which impounds a large reservoir in south-central Ohio. We've had a brutally cold winter, and there are very few streams or lakes with open water.

Moving upstream a bit, we come to the tail waters of the dam. Turbulent water flushed through the dam's portals keeps open a stretch of water, and that attracts ducks. Some of the best birding of late has come from streams immediately downstream of dams, including this one.

I arrived on the scene to find about 50 fowl loafing just below the dam. A smattering of Mallards, a male Canvasback, a group of Red-breasted Mergansers, and these boys. Two Redheads mix with a species that should perk the ears of central Ohio birders, the Greater Scaup. Normally, even in midwinter, it is the much less hardy Lesser Scaup that is the default scaup, but this winter we've had plenty of Greaters appearing at spots such as this. In fact, there were about twenty scaup at this spot during my visit, and all of them were Greater Scaup.

Even though Lesser and Greater Scaup look very similar and can be confusing to separate, the two species are apples to oranges. Greaters are far hardier, and are normally rare to casual at best away from the open waters of Lake Erie. Lesser Scaup winter commonly to the Gulf Coast and beyond - I have this species on my Guatemala list. While Greater Scaup are not technically "sea ducks", they are the closest thing to them in the genus Aythya. Most Greaters winter in salt water along the coasts, although a fair number ride out winter on the Great Lakes.

Photo: Bruce Satta

Bruce Satta took this gorgeous image of a Long-tailed Duck (Oldsquaw) on the tailwaters below the Deer Creek dam several days prior to my visit. I was really hoping it, or another, would be there but no such luck. But as the (former) Oldsquaw is central to this story, I wanted to use a photo of one of the central Ohio birds, and Bruce was kind enough to allow the use of his image.

Long-tailed Ducks have also been turning up in large (for Ohio) numbers away from Lake Erie. Like the Greater Scaup, this sea duck is most often seen on our Great Lake, and sightings inland are few and far between. This winter, it seems that any area with open water might produce one or a few.

These Arctic-nesting ducks are extraordinary divers, and are capable of propelling themselves to depths of 200 feet or more. Mussels are a favored prey.

Photo: Kirk Hewitt

In tandem with all of the inland Long-tailed Duck reports have been a raft of White-winged Scoter sightings. This astonishing shot was made by Kirk Hewitt at Lake Isabella in Hamilton County. The bird struggles with a massive fish (it recalls THIS POST), but like the Long-tailed Duck, mussels are the preferred foodstuff of White-winged Scoters.

An interesting facet of the recent scoter invasion is that all, or nearly all reports are of White-winged Scoters. Not Black or Surf scoters. Why might that be? One important difference between the three species involves feeding habits. Blacks and Surfs are relative shallow divers, typically foraging in waters less than 30 feet deep. White-winged Scoters tend to dive to much deeper depths, often feeding on submerged mussel beds in waters 65 feet deep, and deeper. Thus, the white-wingeds can hang out in deeper waters than their scoter brethren, and often do.

Long-tailed Ducks and White-winged Scoters have invaded inland areas throughout the eastern U.S., not just Ohio. To get a feel for the extent of this sea duck incursion, CHECK OUT eBird.

Because of the extraordinarily cold winter, most all of our water is frozen. This is the view of Deer Creek Reservoir, taken from the top of the dam. Nary a trace of open water. The same can be said of nearly all of our lakes, including the great Lake Erie. That's why the few places with open water, such as dam tail waters and parts of big rivers such as the Great Miami and Scioto are often packed with ducks.

Even in a cold winter in which Lake Erie appears to have frozen solid, it really hasn't. I took this shot in February 2010, miles offshore from Cleveland, during a waterbird survey flight. From the shore, it would seem that the lake was a giant ice cube. However, there are normally lots of open leads, some extensive, and these openings are often packed with waterfowl. I suspect one would find such openings on the other Great Lakes as well, although I haven't had firsthand experience flying over those in the winter.

This ice cover map from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Labratory shows the current extent of Great Lakes ice. Excepting lakes Michigan and Ontario, they are frozen nearly solid. Apparently Lake Erie is about 96% frozen. In short, there are probably few if any open leads to support birds, as there would be in a "normal" winter, even one with lots of ice cover.

Image courtesy U.S. EPA

This U.S. EPA map shows the various water depths of Lake Erie. The majority of the lake ranges from 50 to well over 100 feet in depth (the average depth is 62 feet). From my experience, the deeper (blue) portions are those most likely to support open leads in shifting ice, and that's where the birds are in iced-over winters. And there are undoubtedly plenty of beds of tasty nonnative zebra and quagga mussels down on the bottom; a relatively new (first found in 1988) food source that seems to have lured more sea ducks such as scoters and Long-tailed Ducks to spend time, and even overwinter, on Lake Erie.

Remember, both the Long-tailed Duck and White-winged Scoter are champion divers, routinely submerging to depths of 60 feet or more to feed. Mussel beds in the deeper portions of the lake would not be off-limits to them, although they might be avoided by lesser divers such as Black and Surf scoters.

I wonder if our major inland incursion of Long-tailed Ducks and White-winged Scoters is related to Lake Erie's (and perhaps lakes Huron and Superior) nearly complete covering of ice. If this is the case, it would show how much we have yet to learn about the lake. Because of the nearly inaccessible nature of open leads in Lake Erie ice, we know very little about the numbers and species of ducks that may overwinter on them. This brutal and nearly complete freeze may have forced these birds off the lake (and perhaps other Great Lakes) and into more easily observed situations. And given us a window into the numbers of Long-tailed Ducks and White-winged Scoters (and Greater Scaup) that might be wintering out there.