The Changing Seasons - Waterfowl

The Changing Seasons is a series of blog posts focusing on notable changes in bird distribution in Newfoundland and Labrador over the past ~75 years. These changes may not be apparent to the dedicated birder of today. Certainly significant changes occurred prior to the 1950s but without a written report to review, those changes will remain a mystery.

Note that this is the third in a series of blog posts on this topic.

The first post about goldfinches, redpolls, and song sparrows can be found here.

And the second about gulls can be found here.

Todays post is about waterfowl.

Tufted Ducks and other waterfowl:

The first record of Tufted Duck, a Eurasian species, for the island of Newfoundland was a well documented female at Quidi Vidi lake from 2 Jan - 26 Jan, 1982 [Am. Birds, 1982]. It was another four years until the second record came about: an immature male shot at Colinet on 3 Nov 1986 [Am Birds, 1987]. The 3rd record was a female in Harbour Grace 16 Dec 1986 to 8 Jan 1987. The 4th and 5th records, both female, occurred in the Fall of 1990. The species has been recorded every year since 1994 and numbers have increased for several years with our wintering flock now approaching 100 individuals scattered across the local ponds in the greater St. John's area. The total number is unclear, but seems to have plateaued around 100 in total. 

The first bird found to remain the entire summer was in 2014: an immature male at Mundy Pond, St. John's. And Summer records have since been recorded almost annually.

They are a very welcome addition to our avifauna.

Although there are no breeding records for the province, it wouldn’t be out of the question for a pair to remain on this side of the Atlantic at a remote pond. Hybrids have occurred with Ring-necked Duck and Scaups, suggesting that at least some individuals attempt breeding in our region.

The epicentre of Tufted Ducks is clearly around the St. John's/Mount Pearl/Paradise region with rare sightings outside of there, mostly in the Conception Bay North, Harricott, Clarenville and Stephenville areas. The only Labrador record was in May 2022. Currently seven out of 11 eBird counties in the province have documented this species.

Other waterfowl have also increased in numbers, particularly in the greater St. John's area. There are now dozens of wigeons over-wintering in the region and in 2024 the first breeding record of American Wigeon for the Avalon came from Burton's Pond.

At the same time, I get the impression that there are fewer Northern Pintail in St. John's these days. But I don't have much on-the-ground experience to support this notion. Certainly they are no longer found at Quidi Vidi by the dozens like they used to be only a decade ago! There has been a notable uptick in #'s in Cape Broyle - perhaps these are related.

There have been very few geese over-wintering around the Avalon peninsula aside from isolated records. The only consistent flock is around Sunnyside and Come By Chance where ~50 geese seem to be consistently over-wintering. This winter a new winter record count for the Avalon was recorded with 129 at Sunnyside on Jan 18.

Common Eider:

Common Eiders breed largely on the West coast of Newfoundland, particularly along the Northern Peninsula. Their range extends along the South coast and along the Northeast coast at least as far as Cape Freels area. They are not known to breed on the Avalon Peninsula.

Introductions have been used to increase numbers of breeders in n. Newfoundland. However, some of the increase has been attributed to natural movements of these birds from breeding grounds in Maine as detailed in this recent article and video:

Anecdotally, there have been declines in this species along the Northern Peninsula in recent years. Certainly more detailed sightings would help document this.

Of note, there are several distinctive sub-species of Common Eider. The Northern borealis sub-species is the one commonly seen around the Avalon in the winter. It breeds along the Labrador coast and Northwards. The Dresser's sub-species is the one that breeds in Newfoundland (the range includes Nova Scotia, Maine and the Quebec St. Lawrence coastline). There is also a Pacific sub-species, v-nigrum, that breeds all around Alaska and as far East as Victoria Island and probably further East into Nunavut. There have been several records of this sub-species around the island of Newfoundland. At least 11 are on eBird with most coming in recent years. Certainly the increased number of sightings is due to observer effort, but may in part be due to the reduction in sea ice opening up a pathway to our side of the continent. Of note, the Pacific sub-species is also mentioned in The Birds of Newfoundland (Peters & Burleigh 1951) based on a bird collected near Cuslett over 130 years ago in 1891. 

Pacific Common Eider

Differences from our expected eiders include: larger size, bright orange bill, and green from the nape extending along the lower edge of the black cap.

What changes have you noticed in bird numbers and distributions in our province? Do you have any predictions on what might change in the coming decades?

The next article in this series will outline changes in some of our boreal breeding species.

If you have any feedback on this or any other blog posts, please do not hesitate to share. 

- Alvan