ML31729061

Media notes

display sounds from two male and two female birds together on a small tundra melt pond. During the display both the males and the females would lift their bills and upper bodies and then bring them back down again in a 'chin-lift' display. Most of the quacking calls are from the female birds, which were by far the more vocal, but some of the longer, lower stuttering quacking came from the male birds. There are also two times in the cut (at 0:01 and 2:14) where the males give a whistle call that I think is their true display vocalization. As far as I know this recording represents the first of Steller's Eider display and the first of this species on the breeding grounds.