A few birds from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
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Bufflehead:Bufflehead Puqtaqutayagaq Take a close look at this diving duck and you'll understand how it got its names. Its most common English name, Bufflehead, is actually a corruption of "buffalo-head," because of its puffy buffalo shape. Its scientific name, Bucephala albeola, means much the same thing, "white buffalo head." And, although the Yupik moniker Puqtaqutayagaq has nothing to do with buffaloes, the shape, size and coloration of the duck's head remind even me of a "little float on a fish net." Its peculiar head, though, is not the only unique thing about this bird. When it takes off, it does so straight up in the air like dabbling ducks such as teal and mallards. Other diving ducks have to run and flap across the surface of the water before rising into the air. It is also one of the best divers, disappearing quickly underwater like a grebe and swimming only with its feet, its wings held tight against its sides. Watch, as it bobs to the surface with the suddenness of a cork. It is the smallest of all of our diving ducks and nests only North America. It is, however, less sociable than most other ducks. Since it is a late fall migrant, you will see it almost up to freeze-up. One of the most interesting aspects of the "buffy" is that it nests in tree cavities and, since it is so small, it takes full advantage of unmodified old nest holes of Northern flickers, which is why you don't find it nesting in the parts of the Y-K Delta where there are no large trees. This may also explain why there is no coastal Yupik name for the duck. I certainly didn't find one when I asked in Hooper Bay, Scammon Bay and Emmonak. Even in Marshall I didn't find one. Perhaps farther upriver on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers there is a name for the Bufflehead? If you are lucky enough to be upriver in their nesting area during breeding season, pay attention for a few minutes and watch the courting display of the male. With their crest feathers in full show, they bob their heads, lift their wings and fly for short distances around their mates, which they had already chosen before beginning their long migration north. After the female selects her nesting site, which may be the same flicker hole she's used for many years, she lines the hole with her own feather down and soon begins laying eggs. She may lay up to 12 creamy to pale buff eggs and doesn't start incubating them until they are all laid. This means that at the end of the month-long incubation period, done only by the female, all the eggs will hatch at more or less the same time. The chicks hang out in the flicker hole for 1-2 days while the mother broods them closely then tries coaxing them out. She does this by entering and leaving the cavity until the young get the idea that they are to follow their mom, which they finally do, one by one in the morning, dropping from as far up as fifty feet in a dead birch or spruce tree. After they've all dropped to the ground they follow their mother to the safety of the closest pond or lake. The young instinctively know how to feed themselves as soon as they hit water, but their mom stands guard and will brood them at night or when it's cold. While growing to maturity the young at first eat water plants, and aquatic insects and their larvae, eventually graduating to shrimplike amphipods, some snails and small fishes such as sculpins and sticklebacks. They soon learn to dive for their food and do so in small groups, leaving at least one of their number on the surface to watch for danger from predators. 50-55 days after hatching they finally take their maiden flight. It will still be another month or so, however, until they begin their long migration south to the Lower 48 and Mexico. This small diving duck is also known for its many aliases: bumblebee duck, butterback, butterball, butterbox, butter duck, dapper, dipper duck, robin dipper, dopper, helldiver, marionette, spirit duck, woolhead and buffalo-headed duck, among many others. Talk about a unique duck.  |
