by: Randy Milton & Peter MacDonald
WINTER 1995/96
If you are along the Atlantic coast this winter, keep your eyes open for perhaps the most colourful and least abundant of our wintering sea ducks. The harlequin duck is typically found close to shore where the surf breaks along exposed rocky headlands, reefs, and offshore islands. The smallest sea duck in eastern Canada (750 g - 1.5 lbs), harlequins dive to feed on small shellfish and shrimp-like animals among these churning waters.
Harlequin ducks are locally known as Lords and Ladies, rock duck, and Christmas duck. Females are mostly brown except for a bright white ear patch, similar to Scoters (Coots), but noticeably smaller. Males require three years to develop full breeding colours, but immatures begin to acquire the characteristic plumage in their first autumn. The adult male body is generally dark blue with chestnut sides broken by white markings: a crescent shaped patch at the base of the bill, an oval ear patch, a patch down the side of the neck, a narrow collar around the neck, and chestnut stripes on the top of the head. In flight, the male shows white on the wings with a metallic blue speculum.
The harlequin is distributed across the low arctic in four distinct breeding populations: Pacific, Icelandic, Greenlandic, and eastern North American. While the Pacific population is healthy, the other three have special management status and protection from hunting due to low numbers. Since 1990, the eastern North American harlequin duck population has been protected from hunting under the Migratory Bird Convention Act (MBCA) in Canada and the Migratory Birds Convention Treaty in the United States.
In that same year, this population was designated endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). A national recovery plan for the species was published in 1995. Although not believed to have ever been as abundant as other waterfowl species, the harlequin duck was estimated to number less than 1,000 individuals at the time of its endangered designation. Causes for its decline are not understood, but have been attributed to excessive hunting prior to the MBCA in 1917, losses to hunting prior to protection in 1990, oil pollution, and hydro development along northern breeding rivers.
The recovery plan sets objectives for research, habitat protection, monitoring, and public information to rebuild harlequin duck populations. Essential to the recovery plan is monitoring the species population status. Dispersed over a wide area on fast-flowing rivers of northern Newfoundland, Labrador, and Quebec, a census of the breeding population is impractical. The harlequin's wintering distribution is dispersed from southern Newfoundland as far south as North Carolina. However, harlequins tend to concentrate in traditional wintering areas, which makes it more practical to census these birds during this season and to protect key sites that have been identified.
An intensive winter survey effort has been conducted in Maine at Isle au Haut and various islands and island groups from Penobscot Bay east to the Canadian border. A concentration around the Wolves group of islands in New Brunswick has also been regularly monitored. With the exception of the Eastern Shore Islands Wildlife Management Area, we are not familiar with any concentration along Nova Scotia's coast. Members of the Nova Scotia Bird Society have regularly reported in their newsletter small numbers of harlequins at different coastal locations.
Monitoring waterfowl is normally conducted by wildlife agency staff using fixed wing aircraft or helicopters. From our experience in Nova Scotia, this is an unreliable method to obtain broad-based coverage of distribution and numbers for this species. Most individuals will not be spotted in the turbulent waters associated with their winter habitat. Work in Maine has shown that aircraft surveys miss or significantly underestimate numbers. The most reliable method is to have observers positioned at points along the coast reporting on the numbers seen on the same day or days.
Wildlife agencies will be coordinating surveys over the species' wintering range in eastern Canada and the eastern United States during February to obtain a better estimate of numbers. Nova Scotians can assist wildlife agencies by reporting the number and location of harlequins seen. Observations can be reported to Department of Lands and Forestry' regional biologists or to the Wildlife Division in Kentville. However, the information becomes more useful when it can be linked with the coordinated surveys conducted by wildlife agencies. Observations made during February will be very important, particularly those made between Friday and Monday of each week.
Nova Scotians have been successful in the past in conserving other waterfowl species and their habitats. We can do the same for the harlequin duck and ensure future generations enjoy the splendour of this beautiful sea duck.