Roadside Nature Tours through the Okanagan by Richard Cannings

Author:Richard Cannings
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRV006050, NAT049000
ISBN: 9781926812243
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2011-03-06T16:00:00+00:00

focus Barrow’s Goldeneye

You can almost always see a few ducks on Yellow Lake; the commonest species is the Barrow’s goldeneye. These ducks winter on the Pacific coast, where they feed largely on mussels. In April they fly inland to nest on lakes scattered throughout the mountains and plateaus of British Columbia—the province hosts more than half the world’s population. The handsome males are boldly patterned in black and white and marked with a distinctive white crescent on the face. The females have grey bodies and brown heads but sport a bright yellow-orange bill in breeding season.

Goldeneyes are diving ducks, and in summer they feed on aquatic insects, shrimp, and other invertebrates. Like all varieties of duck, the goldeneye male leaves all nesting and brood-rearing tasks to the female. She chooses a large cavity in a tree for her nest, usually one excavated by a pileated woodpecker. If she can’t find a tree nest, she may opt for a hole in a cliff; one local goldeneye even nested in an unused marmot burrow. The black-and-white fluffball young jump out of the cavity within a day of hatching, sometimes falling as far as 20 metres to the ground, where they bounce and quickly run to the water with their mother. Like most ducks, goldeneye pairs were once thought to be faithful for only a single season, since the males leave the females as soon as they have finished laying the full clutch of eggs. But a detailed study in British Columbia using marked birds showed that many couples found each other again on the wintering grounds and nested together the following spring.

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