The Weird and Wonderful World of Sea Ducks

"What makes a duck a duck?"

This question was posed to me the other day by a friendly gentleman who stopped to chat as I stood behind my spotting scope, peering over massive swells and crashing waves at a distant flock of dark specks bobbing on the surface of the water beyond the breakers.  These specks, I had informed him, were ducks.  More specifically, they were a delightful collection of three species of scoter, a highly specialized type of sea duck designed for life on the rugged, wave-battered coast.  

Those are ducks?  I could feel the skepticism.  

Yes, ducks.  But not dabbling puddle ducks, like the familiar Mallard, or even hardy diving ducks, like scaup.  

These are sea ducks!

Surf Scoters in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Moss Landing, California.  July.

I answered his question the best I could with somewhat divided attention: Biology, physiology, behavior and life history all combine to make a duck a duck, so that even diverse and disparate groups, like the sea ducks, may be classified under the familiar moniker.  Surprising, maybe, but true nonetheless!

I could have also added that of the world's 21 species of sea ducks, a group that includes goldeneye, Bufflehead and mergansers along with scoters, eiders, Harlequin Duck and Long-tailed Duck, 15 species breed in North America, generally in the Arctic and northern boreal forests.  

Harlequin Ducks (males) in the Salish Sea, off the coast of Port Angeles, Washington.  June.

Mysterious and little understood, largely due to the remoteness of both their winter and breeding habitats, sea ducks are a beautiful and captivating group of birds that the world of ornithology is still learning more about.  In fact, it wasn't until the 1990's that scientists discovered where Spectacled Eider disappear to during the winter: Satellite transmitters revealed that these incredible ducks spend the long, dark northern winters congregating at openings in pack ice in the Bering and Beaufort Seas, northwest of Alaska!

Along the coast of Central California, our most common sea duck is the Surf Scoter.  Surf Scoters can be found here year-round, though they are far more abundant during fall through early spring.  Some non-breeding birds hang around through the summer, though most Surf Scoters head north to Alaska and the northern Canadian provinces for the breeding season.  There, during the short summers of high latitudes, Surf Scoters nest near inland ponds and shallow lakes where boreal forests begin to give way to tundra.  

Surf Scoters in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Moss Landing, California.  July.

During fall migration, massive numbers of Surf Scoters move south past Monterey's Point Pinos, on their way to wintering sites as far south as Baja; many stay to winter in and around the Monterey Bay area, where they favor rugged, rocky shorelines, often bobbing in large flocks right in the thick of the breaking waves and diving for invertebrates on the sea floor.

Surf Scoter (male) in Moss Landing Harbor.  August

A smaller number of White-winged Scoters and a few rare Black Scoters augment winter scoter flocks along the central coast as well.  This was the case the other day in Pacific Grove, where both a White-winged Scoter and a Black Scoter were mixed in with about seventy Surf Scoters.  A gorgeous male Black Scoter, sporting a bright orange knob atop his bill, is a real treat to find!

Black Scoter in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Pacific Grove, California.  December.

While sea ducks are present here to some degree year-round, it is winter that truly shine as "Weird Duck Time"!

During this glorious season, when it is possible for us soft Californian birders to luxuriate in sunny skies and temperatures in the 60's, a myriad of weird and wonderful sea ducks are possible along the central coast.  

Black Scoter in Monterey Bay, off the coast of Pacific Grove, California.  December.

Rare but regular winter visitors to California's central coast include Harlequin Ducks and Long-tailed Ducks, along with the aforementioned Black Scoter.  Real rarities, the eiders, only seldom grace our coast, but I was delighted to be able to see two King Eiders from Asilomar State Beach in March of this year, after having encountered Common Eiders for the first time the previous summer in New England.

Common Eiders (adult and immature males) in the Atlantic, off Eastern Egg Rock, Maine. June.

Unfortunately, the 2022 State of the Birds report found that while all species of sea ducks are in decline, the populations of two species in particular, the King Eider and Black Scoter, have lost half of their populations since 1970.  And this decline is projected to continue, unless something changes.  Threats to sea duck breeding habitat include oil spills, drilling for oil and gas, sea level rise, pollution, and habitat loss to development, among others.  Check out this article, by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to learn more.

Common Eiders (females with young) in the Atlantic, off the coast of New Hampshire. June.

One of the many benefits of birding is its value as a tool for education and outreach.  Most people are unlikely to ever encounter sea ducks in their day-to-day lives; many aren't even aware of their existence.  It takes an interest in birds to seek out an article or nature show about these birds, and in order to see them in their natural habitat, one usually has to venture out to the coast and scan the sea with high-powered optics.  For someone who has long admired birds and had a desire to see their habitats protected, seeing sea ducks in the wild and experiencing them "in the feather," so to speak, only serves to intensify those feelings.  Once you've watched a scoter dive for a mollusk on the sea bed, or an eider tend to her chicks in the surf, it becomes personal.  

But how can people be expected to care about about a group of birds they have never even heard of?  And how can they hear about them unless we take the time to tell them?  

[As an aside, this conundrum reminds me of another such question, posed in one very special Book, in reference to a far, far more important Message, the one and only Gospel that brings salvation and hope: "But how can they call on him [Jesus] to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them?" (Romans 10:14, NLT)

Whether it's about weird and wonderful sea ducks and their compromised boreal habitat, or Jesus Christ and salvation, we have to take the time to tell people.]

Just a decade or so ago, I too would have looked a trifle confused if someone had told me there were ducks in the pounding surf just off the rocky coast of Pacific Grove, and would probably have been surprised to learn that sea ducks, weird and wild wonders of the far north, spend the winter along the coast of central California.  But now, when curious bystanders inquire about my spotting scope and binoculars trained out over the raging surf, usually assuming I'm looking at whales or sea otters (which are wonderful in their own right!), I'm presented with the opportunity to share with others just one more little piece of the richness and beauty of the natural world we have been given to share, hopefully starting another person on a path of wonder and discovery, stewardship and conservation.