81

Recognizable Forms

Bill Colour and Identification ofFemale Barrow's Goldeneye

byBruce Di Labio, Ron Pittaway and Peter Burke

IntroductionThe bill colour of adult femaleBarrow's Goldeneye (Bucephalaislandica) in eastern North America isdescribed inaccurately in most NorthAmerican field guides and publishedliterature. This has led to muchunnecessary confusion among birders.Although we attempted to correct'this misinformation (Di Labio andPittaway 1987), errors have stillappeared in recently published fieldguides. The purpose of this paper is toclarify the bill colour issue and reviewthe field identification of adult femaleBarrow's Goldeneye in the winter.

Plumage and AgeIn winter, goldeneyes have two ageclasses: adult breeding (definitivealternate) plumage and first year (firstbasic/alternate) plumage. Goldeneyesacquire their first adult breedingplumage in their second autumn whenthey are over a year old. Most of ourdiscussion refers to females in adultbreeding plumage, from November toMay, when their bill colour is thebrightest. Female goldeneyes insummer (June to October) have all-darkbills because they lose most of theyellow-orange coloration. First yearfemales in fall and early winter havedark bills; they are slower than adultsto develop colour on their bills, oftennot until mid-winter to spring. The

yellow or orange on the bills of firstyear females is duller and less exten-sive than on adults. First year femaleBarrow's often show a mixture ofdusky and yellow-orange, whereassame age/sex Common Goldeneyes(Bucephala clangula) usually have adark bill with a muted yellow tip. Eyecolour of first year females is notice-ably duller than the brighter eyes ofadult females. See Palmer (1976) andTobish (1986) for more details ofplumage, molt and age, but note ourcomments below.

Bill ColourIn most field guides and identificationarticles, the bill colour of femaleBarrow's Goldeneye is said to differbetween birds in eastern and westernNorth America. For example, Madgeand Bum (1988) state, "Females ofwestern North America have allyellow bill, a feature not recorded ineastern populations, which havebicoloured bills ...". Similar descrip-tions appear in the NationalGeographic field guide (Scott 1987),in the recent Stokes field guide (Stokesand Stokes 1996), and even in thethorough discussion provided byTobish (1986). The photographs of theeastern females with yellow-tippedbills in Tobish (1986) are of captivebirds in Washington, D.C. (ClaudiaWilds, pers. comm.). Note: these birds

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82are not like any adult female Barrow'sGoldeneyes we have seen in NorthAmerica; they probably originatedfrom the Icelandic population.

Despite descriptions in the litera-ture of different bill colours in easternand western females in NorthAmerica, we found no evidence tosubstantiate these claims. During thepast 30 years, we have observed over75 adult female Barrow's Goldeneyeswintering on the Ottawa River andupper St. Lawrence River in easternOntario and southern Quebec. All had"pumpkin" orange bills with a darknail, often with small dusky areas onthe basal half at close range, butappearing mostly or all yellow-orangeat a distance (Figure 1). The bill colourof our birds is similar to females inwestern North America. In addition,250 to 1000 Barrow's Goldeneyesregularly winter on the north shore ofthe lower St. Lawrence River in theBaie-Comeau area of Quebec. Adultfemales there also show "pumpkin"orange bills (Michel Gosselin, pers.comm.). We are not aware of anyOntario or Quebec observations ofadult female Barrow's Goldeneyeswith yellow-tipped bills like thedescriptions of "eastern females" inmany field guides.

There are four widely separatedbreeding populations of Barrow'sGoldeneyes: western North America,Quebec and Labrador, Iceland, andprobably southwestern Greenland (hasbred). The bill colour of females fromthe tiny Greenland population isunknown. Since Ontario and Quebecfemales are orange-billed like westernbirds, are we seeing birds from thewestern North American populationwintering in the east? This seemsunlikely because Barrow's is a short-

ONTARIO BIRDS AUGUST 1997

distance migrant and because the sizeof the population wintering in the eastagrees closely with the small popula-tion (2000-4000 birds) that summersand presumably nests in remote areasof Quebec and Labrador (Savard 1996;Michel Gosselin, pers. comm.).

We believe that there are no dif-ferences in the bill colour of adultfemale Barrow's Goldeneyes in east-ern and western North America; bothpopulations have bills in winter thatare mostly yellow-orange in colour.However, most females of theIcelandic population have dark,yellow-tipped bills '(Bardarson 1986)or orange-yellow tipped bills (Jonsson1992), usually with a wider band ofcolour than on a Common. A very tinynumber of the females in Iceland haveall yellow-orange bills like NorthAmerican birds (Gamer 1991). Thesmall population in Iceland (800-1000pairs) is mostly non-migratory and weknow of no North American records ofthis form. The Icelandic population isperhaps where the confusion about billcolour arose. We have never seen afemale Barrow's in Ontario or Quebecwhose bill was dark with a yellow tiplike the birds in Iceland. Interestingly,the National Geographic Society fieldguide (Scott 1987) on page 87 illus-trates a first year female with a yellow-tipped bill and David Sibley (pers.comm.) reports seeing a femaleBarrow's with a yellow-tipped bill inCalifornia. Perhaps a few first yearfemales in North America can havebicoloured bills.

Field IdentificationThe general appearance of femaleBarrow's and Common Goldeneyes isvery similar (Figure 1). The mostimportant field marks differentiating

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Figure 1: Female goldeneyes in definitive alternate plumage. North AmericanBarrow's Goldeneyes (top left and right), Icelandic Barrow's Goldeneye(middle right), Common Goldeneyes (middle and bottom left), extremevariant Common Goldeneye with all-yellow bill (bottom right). Thelarge heads are relaxed birds and small birds are sleeked down birds afterdiving. Drawing by Peter Burke.

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84these species are head shape and billsize, not bill colour. The head of thefemale Barrow's Goldeneye has anoval shape, created by a steep fore-head, flat crown, and elongated hindneck feathers like a mane. The latterfeature gives the appearance of aswept back crest, similar to the maleBarrow's and the female HoodedMerganser (Lophodytes cucullatus).At times, when the head is tuckedtightly against the body, the crest evenfurther accents the oval shape of thehead. The head of the femaleCommon Goldeneye lacks the "puffi-ness" of the female Barrow's. It has arounded rather than flat crown and asloping forehead. Note, however, thathead shape can vary; it is sleekeddown when diving and more normalin shape when relaxed. In Figure 1,the two small illustrations are ofsleeked down birds that have justsurfaced after diving and the fourlarge heads are of relaxed birds.Caution: alert female Commons withtheir heads held high can show a sur-prisingly steep or vertical foreheadthat could cause confusion.

The head colours also differ.Female Barrow's has a dark chocolatebrown head while the female Commonhas a slightly lighter brown head. Thisis not easily seen in the field withoutdirect comparison. In addition, theBarrow's Goldeneye has a slightly, butnoticeably, shorter bill than theCommon (Godfrey 1986). This givesthe Barrow's a stubby-billed appear-ance, which accentuates the steepnessof the Barrow's forehead. TheCommon's bill is longer and flattercompared with a Barrow's (Figure 1).

Female Common Goldeneyes usu-ally have dark bills with a yellow bandnear the tip. Therefore, scanning a

o TARIO BIRDS AUGUST 1997

flock of goldeneyes for a bird with amostly yellow-orange bill is a quickway to discover a possible Barrow'seven at a distance. Caution: we haveseen female Common Goldeneyes withextensive yellow-orange and even allyellow-orange bills on many occa-sions. For example, on 30 November1996, while birding the Niagara River,the first author observed an adultfemale Common Goldeneye with a billthat was completely orange-yellowexcept for a small dark area at the base.On 28 December 1996, he scanned aflock of Common Goldeneyes alongthe Ottawa River at Brittania (Ottawa).One female with an orange-yellow billstood out; the bill showed slight darkareas only at the base, nostril and nail.However, note that often the nail isyellow too in these variant yellow-billed female Commons (Figure 1).We stress that it is necessary to usehead shape and bill size to confirmidentification.

Some further checking is neededbecause head shape is said to be slowto develop in young females, but wefeel safe in saying that even most firstyear female goldeneyes can be iden-tified to species based on their headshape and bill size. First year males(female-like) in fall and early winter,before they develop facial spots, arealso easy to identify to species bytheir distinctive head and bill shape.These differences can be recognizedwith practice.

HybridsSeveral wild male hybrids betweenCommon and Barrow's Goldeneyeshave been reported from Ontario(Martin and Di Labio 1991). Theirintermediate characteristics suggestthat female hybrids also would be

intermediate in head shape andprobably bill colour. Although theprobability of encountering a hybrid isremote, any female that does not showthe classic features of a Barrow's orCommon Goldeneye should be leftunidentified.

ConclusionThe combination of head shape and billsize are the best field marks to distin-guish female Common and Barrow'sGoldeneyes. Bill colour of Barrow's ishelpful, but it should not be used as adiagnostic field mark. A surprisingnumber of Common Goldeneyes havemostly or all yellow or orange bills.There is no difference in bill colourbetween the eastern and western popu-lations of adult female Barrow'sGoldeneyes in North America; bothpopulations have the same yellow-orange bills. However, adult femaleBarrow's in Iceland have yellow ororange tipped bills that are differentfrom North American birds. Barrow'sGoldeneyes wintering in the eastprobably originate from the nestingpopulation in Quebec and Labrador.

AcknowledgmentsWe' thank Dan Brunton, MichelGosselin, Ross Harris, Jean Iron, RonTozer, Mike Turner and Liz Stevensonfor their valuable comments.

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Literature CitedBardarson, H. 1986. Birds of leeland. H.R.

Bardarson, leeland.Di Labio, B.M. and R. Pittaway. 1987. Point-

Counterpoint: Bill color of adult femaleBarrow's Goldeneye. Birding 19(3}:21-22.

Garner, M.S. 1991. Mystery photographs 173.British Birds 84(12}: 543-546.

Godfrey, W.E. 1986. The Birds of Canada,Revised Edition. National Museums ofCanada, Ottawa.

Ionsson, L. 1992. Birds of Europe. PrincetonUniversity Press, New Jersey.

Madge, S. and H. Burn. 1988. Waterfowl: AnIdentification Guide. Houghton Mifflin Co ..Boston.

Martin, P.R. and B.M. Di Lahio. 1991. An appar-ent Common x Barrow's Goldeneye hybridfrom the St. Lawrence River. Ontario Birds9(3}: 67-70.

Pa/mer, R.S. 1976. Handbook of orth AmericanBirds, Volume 3, Waterfowl, Part 2. YaleUniversity Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

Savard, J-P.L 1996. Barrow's Goldeneye(Bucephala islandica), pp. 332-335 in TheBreeding Birds of Quebec: Atlas of theBreeding Birds of Southern Quebec (J.Gauthier and Y.Aubry, editors). Associationquebecoise des groupes d'ornithologues;Province of Quebec Society for the Protectionof Birds, Canadian Wildlife Service,Environment Canada, Quebec Region,Montreal.

Scott, S.L (editor). 1987. Field Guide to the Birdsof North America. National GeographicSociety, Washington, D.e.

Stokes, D. W.and LQ. Stokes. 1996. Stokes FieldGuide to Birds: Eastern Region. Little Brownand Co., Toronto.

Tobish, T. 1986. Separation of Barrow's andCommon Goldeneyes in all plumages. Birding18 (1}:17-27.

Bruce Di Labio, 44 Helmsdale Drive, Kanata, Ontario K2K 2S3Ron Pittaway, Box 619, Minden, Ontario KOM 2KOPeter Burke, Box 1092, Lakefield, Ontario KOL 2HO

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