ML65833661

Age and sex

Adult Male - X

Media notes

This adult male Harlequin Duck in eclipse plumage was summering along the beach north of Cayucos Creek where it was photographed here by Curtis A. Marantz on 29 July 2017 at Cayucos, San Luis Obispo County, California.

Observation details

Tom spotted the summering bird from the bluffs above, so we descended to the beach and walked north from the parking lot to study this bird more closely as it stood on the rocks not far north of the pier. This bird was rather cooperative, allowing me to approach it quite closely for photos and to study it using my scope. The duck stood up and turned first one way and then the other, but it never left its rock despite my close approach, and in fact, it was really quite sedate. Not surprisingly, I never heard this bird vocalize. This was a medium-sized duck that had the unique shape of the species. The bill was relatively short and stubby as it tapered from a deep base to a blunt tip along a culmen that sloped downward from the base of the bill before curving upward distally. The forehead was relatively steep and the crown was smoothly rounded as it curved downward from a peak that was roughly above the eyes and around the nape to result in a shape that was not unlike that of a Greater Scaup. The neck was short and inconspicuous, but the body was plump and full-chested. The posture of this bird was more upright than horizontal yet not quite diagonal when the bird stood alertly on the rock. Both the wings and tail were quite worn, with the tertials and primary tips representing little more than shafts, and the rectrices were likewise abraded. I was therefore able to note that the wingtips reached nearly to the tip of the tail, but I was unable to discern the primary projection with any precision. I similarly thought the tail was between one-third and one-half the length of the body, but I was unable to determine its length more precisely, and even though the tail appeared to be slightly flared and rounded distally, I am not sure if this would have been true had the vanes been intact. The legs were short and not all that massive, and I was pretty sure the feet were webbed, but I did not see them all that well. Although we knew this bird was a summering, adult male, its plumage patterns were essentially identical to those of a female. The head, what I could see of the neck, and the back, rump, flanks, and undertail coverts were primarily a sooty-black in color. Conspicuous on the face was a teardrop-shaped region of paler coloration that extended downward across the front part of the face between the eye and the base of the bill. Unlike the more tapered and entirely white markings of a bird in breeding plumage, the pale region on this bird was clouded with dusky above and especially in front of the eye, so it was really only conspicuous at the base of the bill below the level of the eye, where it was white and rounded in appearance. Complementing the mark at the base of the bill was a spot of white on the rear part of the auriculars that was relatively small, perfectly rounded, and entirely white. I noted no indication of the white band on the side of the neck and only rudimentary suggestions of the bands on the sides of the breast, which appeared as one, small spot of white on the bird’s right side, and a series of three, small spots on the left side at the junction of the breast and flanks. I noted that the belly was somewhat paler and more brownish than the flanks, but I was less sure if it contrasted similarly with the breast. As noted above, the tertials represented little more than white shafts, but the primaries were also quite worn, and the wings in general were lighter and more brownish than the rump, yet they lacked obvious contrast apart from that created by the pale shafts of the visible primary tips. The rectrices were again little more than feather shafts, but I thought they were dark overall. The bill was a dark gray in color, the eyes were dark brown, and I thought the legs and feet were blackish, if not truly black.

Technical information

Model

Canon EOS 7D Mark II

Lens

EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

ISO

800

Focal length

400 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire, auto

f-stop

f/6.3

Shutter speed

1/125 sec

Dimensions

3085 pixels x 2127 pixels

Original file size

1.86 MB