Long-tailed Duck

Long-tailed Duck; adult male (breeding); Churchill, Manitoba; June

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Long-tailed Duck, male breeding plumage (right), and female

Long-tailed Duck; breeding adult pair (male to right)

Long-tailed Duck, male, winter plumage, NY, January

Long-tailed Duck, female, winter plumage, NY, January

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1. Description
2. Sound
3. Conservation Status
4. Other Names
5. Cool Facts
6. Full detailed species account

Formerly known as Oldsquaw, the Long-tailed Duck breeds in the Arctic and winters along both coasts of North America. It is distinctive among ducks in plumage, molt sequences, foraging behavior, and vocalizations.

Description

• Medium-sized diving duck.
• Mostly black-and-white plumage, varying throughout year.
• Black wings in all plumages.
• Male has long central tail feathers and often a pink band near tip of black bill.

• Size: 38-58 cm (15-23 in)
• Wingspan: 72 cm (28 in)
• Weight: 500-1100 g (17.65-38.83 ounces)

Sex Differences

Male has very long black central tail feathers and is cleanly marked black-and-white. Female has short tail and is patterned in smudgy black, white, and brown. Male's bill often has a pink band near the tip; female's bill is uniformly dark gray.

Sound

Male makes loud, nasal, seemingly incessant call, "ow-owooolee." Call a soft "gut-gut" call when feeding, or barks when alarmed.

Conservation Status

Populations appear to be declining, but numbers difficult to census because of offshore wintering areas. Not widely hunted. Entanglement in fishing nets killed tens of thousands of Long-tailed Ducks in the 1950s, especially in the Great Lakes; recent statistics and trends on by-catch of Long-tailed Duck have not been compiled.

Other Names

Harelde kakawi (French)

Cool Facts

• The Long-tailed Duck is one of the deepest diving ducks, and can dive as deep as 60 meters (200 feet) to forage.
• Of all diving ducks, the Long-tailed Duck spends the most time under water relative to time on the surface. When it is foraging it is submerged three to four times as much as it is on top of the water.

• Unlike most ducks, which molt twice per year, the Long-tailed Duck has three distinct plumages each year, achieved in a complex series of overlapping partial molts. The Definitive Basic Plumage is never worn in its entirety, as portions of Alternate are retained through the summer and elements of the Supplemental are acquired before all of Basic Plumage is obtained. Therefore change in plumage seems continuous from April to October.

• Unlike other waterfowl, the Long-tailed Duck wears its "breeding" or Alternate Plumage only in the winter. It gets its "nonbreeding" or Basic Plumage in the spring and wears it for the breeding season. Most other ducks wear the nonbreeding plumage only for a short period in the late summer.

Sources used to construct this page:

Robertson, G. J., and J-P. L. Savard. 2002. Long-tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis). In The Birds of North America, No. 651 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.