Long-tailed Duck

The elegant Long-tailed Duck is a winter visitor to the New Hampshire coast from breeding grounds in arctic Canada and Alaska. It nests farther north than most other ducks, with some nesting on Ellsmere Island less than 600 miles from the North Pole. Like other arctic sea ducks it dives for its food, in this case primarily crustaceans (all year), insect larvae (summer), and small mollusks (winter). It tends to eat smaller prey than species like eiders and scoters. Its claim to fame in this department is its diving prowess. While other diving ducks tend to descend up to 50 feet (and often much less), Long-tailed Ducks have been recorded down to an impressive 200 feet. Perhaps just as impressive, they do this by flapping their wings underwater, rather than using their feet as other species do.

Another thing that sets the Long-tailed Duck apart is that it has three distinct plumages over the course of the year rather than two. Other ducks have a long-lasting “breeding plamage” (e.g., the distinctive dabbling ducks such as Mallards) and a shorter female-like “eclipse plumage” during the summer when they are flightless. Long-tailed Ducks have very distinct winter and summer plumages, neither of which is terribly cryptic, and a third supplemental plumage sandwiched between the two in late summer and early fall. We mostly see the winter plumage in New Hampshire, but Long-tailed Ducks begin shifting to their breeding season coloration starting in April, and you can see this change occurring until they depart in May. The supplemental plumage is only seen on the breeding grounds.

Long-tailed duck populations have been in slow decline for decades, although there are signs that the declines are slowing in some portions of their range. Causes are largely speculative, but in the past included entanglement in fishing gear, oil spills, and contaminants such as lead. More recently there has been concern about the impacts of climate change and offshore wind development on this species.