Long-tailed Duck Spectacle, Nantucket

From mid-October to mid-December the waterfowl and seabirds of North America are migrating to their winter quarters on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. In New England a visit in late fall to Cape Ann, Newburyport, Plymouth, Cape Cod, Buzzard's Bay or Narragansett Bay is sure to provide many opportunities to view a wide variety of these ducks. In the East many species prefer the warmer climes south of New Jersey, but some are adapted to find food in colder waters.

Last week I described an encounter with an oldsquaw that had stopped at a local lake on its way to the coast. It nests in the Arctic from Labrador to the Yukon, even all around the coasts of Greenland and the icy islands of northern Canada. They look much like an ice duck, pied black and white, matching both the liquid and frozen form of their cold watery element. Many individuals of this species stay all year in the cold seas along the southern coast of Greenland and from Newfoundland to Maine, but many also spend the winter in Massachusetts waters.

You can get a sense of how many ducks there are in North America by standing on an ocean promontory on a late fall day with a blustery wind blowing in your face from the Northeast. I can remember the first time I visited Sandy Neck Beach in Barnstable and the oldsquaws were constantly streaming by low over the surf in line after line. The estimate after a couple of hours was several thousand. My elderly mother was with me, and she was amazed. For years she was asking when we could see that sight again.

One spectacle I have never seen is the one that takes place each winter day near the eastern shore of Nantucket Island. Those who witness the passage of tens of thousands of oldsquaws at dawn and dusk there speak of it with awe. These birds feed each day on Nantucket Shoals, long the bane of New England mariners, but the larder to the little duck who dives deep for the shellfish that cling to the dangerous underwater rocks. At night they retire from the open ocean to rest on the calmer waters of Nantucket Sound, north of the island. Maximum counts made recently were 165,000 on December 7, 1997, and 200,000 on March 30, 1996.

So where did they get such a name as "oldsquaw?" They got it because of their voice, something I have never heard. It is said to be musical and merry, transcribed poorly as ow-ooddle-ow, very unlike the typical utterances of ducks. This unique vocal talent is also used at every opportunity when gathered in flocks, as they migrate, cavort, and especially court.

The name, then, originated as a rather unkind comment on female indigenous Americans, suggesting that they are talkative to an extreme. It has been called many another poetic name, such as old granny, old molly, Aunt Huldy, scolder, cockawee, and quandy. Those with a more prosaic bent prefer a name like long-tailed duck, but oldsquaw it is. Let us consider the name a compliment instead, and suggest that it is the sweetness and vibrancy of those notes that give the bird its name.

These odd names can be confusing for the non-birder. To illustrate let me return to the original subject that introduced this topic, the spotting telescope. On my first trip to the coast in late winter, 1969, I did not own one. I stood at the seawall at Newburyport, straining my eyes through a pair of binoculars, trying to make out the forms and colors of ducks never seen before.

Another car pulled up and a man set up his telescope nearby. After a few minutes he invited me to take a look, asking me if I "wanted to see the oldsquaw." It was my first clear look. My spouse also took a peek, though she was only along for the ride and not much interested in these feathered creatures. Later she asked me how we knew that the one bird in the picture was the "old" squaw, the matriarch of all those other ducks?

Perhaps one of those was the matriarch. Someday I hope to get close enough to hear her merry song.