Talbot Bird Club Member Diane Cole has asked me to forward the message
below.
 
Les Roslund
Talbot County
-----Original Message-----
From: WDiane Cole [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 2:32 PM
Subject: About Female Barrow's goldeneye



Hi, Les.  I have read the comments on MD Osprey about yellow-billed  female
common goldeneyes vs Barrow's, and I'd like to send a follow-up message.  I
am not a registered user of Osprey... would you mind forwarding this for me,
please?  Thanks much.  Diane

Greetings from sunny Lakeland, FL, where my cousin and I spend most of the
day on her porch watching sandhill cranes, wook storks, anhingha, and white
ibis wander about the yard, while little blue, great blue, and tri-color
herons, great egret, coots with large white face shields, blue-winged teal,
common moorhen, pied-billed grebe, and river otter work the shallow end of
her neighborhood's  stormwater retention area.  And there goes the palm
warbler that hangs out in the palmetto.  Not bad for being in a tract
housing project.

With regards to female Barrow goldeneyes, which are quite plentiful on Birch
Bay and Padilla Bay in northern Washington state- a haven for waterfowl in
the winter- the bill is stubby.  The closest analogy is the stubby Ross's
goose bill vs the longer Snow goose bill.  The female Barrow's bill appears
almost entirely yellow, with the yellow being bright and clear, as Harry
described.  Commons have a longer, flatter-looking bill, and the yellow is
somewhat muted with gradations of yellow.

The shagginess on the back of the neck does not appear on a wet Barrow's.
From a distance, the high forhead does not stand out.  But, the shape of the
entire head takes on the appearance of a square with rounded corners, vs the
elongated oval of a common's head.

Commons and Barrows are known to hybridize, and the photo Glenn Lovelace
references suggests a possible hybrid.  West coast and East coast goldeneyes
do not have variations in morphology.

Interestingly, Sibley's, National Geographic, and the Cornelll web site
describe different colors for the head of a male Barrow's.  In the field,
the male Barrow's head is a decidedly purple-black, much like that of the
tufted duck or lesser scaup, while the Common's head is green.  In Birch
Bay, they occur together in large flocks, and often paddle side by side up
the canals that serve as road drainage ditches.  This affords close-up
comparison viewing through your sliding glass doors.

I strongly encourage winter trips to the northern Puget Sound area,
particularly the Skagit River area and north to the Canadian border.  The
Skagit River valley hosts incredible numbers of bald eagles due to the
salmon run, prairie and peregrine falcon, and numerous species of buteos.
The eurasian and American wigeons on Padilla Bay near Edison occur in the
hundreds of thousands.  One year I assisted on the Padilla Bay Christmas
Count, and after a day listening to half a million "cute squeaky voices", I
prayed to never hear a wigeon's call ever again.

Diane Cole


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