On the Wing #32: Oldsquaw

In what would normally be another life bird for me, I felt not only the usual bubbling of excitement followed by the normalizing of the experience into the sure feeling that I knew what it was I was identifying. Last weekend when I saw my first Harlequin Ducks (Histrionicus histrionicus), Red Crossbills (Loxia curvirostra), and Horned Grebes (Podiceps auritus) I felt these very emotions, but they've faded slightly as I remember them now. Today was different though. As the title suggests I saw a bird that I've held in high esteem since I was a boy of ten. As I gleaned through a copy of "Duck Hunting" by Dick Sternberg and Jeff Simpson, I looked over the species accounts and absorbed much of the information I know today from them. One bird always stood out to me however because it looked like the most exquisite dandy of the whole lot. The Long-tailed Duck (Clangula hyemalis), or Oldsquaw, as it was formerly know, with the male's large white crown and nape, ash gray cheeks, and pink dipped bill, pointed scapular feathers that were white as snow, and a pointed tail that rivals a pintail's. I largely ignored the females, but as I've grown up and been schooled in the ways of wildlife management, I've learned not only their subtle plumages, but also how to sex and age them as well.

J. Spies 2009 Federal Duck Stamp

As I parked at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, CT, I reviewed the day I had. While I won't say what I'm doing for work outright, I will say that it also involves Oldsquaw/Long-tailed Duck. (If you're wondering why I prefer the old name to the new one, I'm a bit of a lover of colloquialisms. A early as I can remember, I visited the town library to pour over Edward Howe Forbush's "Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States" and read all the old hunter names of the game birds. Market hunters in different regions called birds by different names so an Oldsquaw in the north was called a South-southerly in Virginia, while in the Carolinas it was called a Knockmolly.)

As I walked to a rocky point near a large modern-esque looking building (I'm crap at describing architecture) and sat on a large boulder overlooking the Long Island Sound that separates Long Island from the southern coast of Connecticut, I scanned the waters with my binoculars. I quickly picked out the dusky bull neck of Common Loon (Gavia immer) as well as the daintier and delicately patterned Red-throated Loons (Gavia stellata). I looked up and down the shore. I wasn't completely alone. There were dog walkers with their pooches running willy-nilly on the sand as they are wont to do. I ignored their frenzied scampering to resume scoping out the blue salt water below me. Around me and above my head, Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) dropped oysters, mussels, and clams onto jagged and broken stone in order to crack their meals open in the manner they'd always done. No bread or burger thieves here I thought, but then again, who knows what they would do when people weren't looking. I glassed the water again. I thought I'd heard the clamor that the males made, but convinced myself that I'd misheard a gull's cry or even twisted the grunt of a passing group of Brant (Branta bernicla) into that clamorous cry made by the males. I looked up to see a bird dive into the blue below. "Oldsquaw?", I thought, as I strained for a better look. I slowly looked up and there in the distance were three white birds and one dark brown one. I froze. Could they be? Really?!

G. Lockwood's 2001 Vermont Duck Stamp

I looked through my binoculars. They were!! Three, no four male Oldsquaw and two females bobbing in the waves like buoys left lost by a passing storm. The feeling I felt next was different than the other times I'd seen a new species. Jubilation that gave way to a matter-of-fact listing that would make its way towards the goal of 300 species. Even in Florida with my sighting of a Burrowing Owl (Athene cunicularia), Painted Bunting (Passerina ciris), and Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), nothing compared to the emotional joy I felt at seeing these birds. I cried. Yes, you read that correctly. A 20-something male cried at the sight of seeing Oldsquaw. I'd been dreaming, hoping, wishing that I would someday see these wonderful birds in the wild. I'd seen them in captivity before, but they looked so small compared to what was said about them in the books. All the books measurements were of course based on physical specimen length after all, but seeing them close up makes one realize that they (the measurements I mean) don't matter. Just seeing such wonderful birds makes you realize how special they are and how unique and how there isn't any other species like them on the planet. I normally try to space myself from becoming attached to wild creatures by quantifying them another way, by comparing them in regards to population size or numbers at the peak of migration. But after putting so much thought and desire and hope into seeing these birds, I cannot see them in terms of just another bunch of ducks out there on the high seas. Seeing those birds hit me somewhere inside and showed a part of me that I sometimes forget about. I have a genuine compassion for the people and things I care about and no matter what, I will stay true to them. After seeing those birds today, even as I write this, I feel so rich and full of happiness at having seen these birds. 

As I was watching them dive for clams near the point, I noted how bright the males were and how rich and dark the females looked even with their whitish heads present. I remember writing in my birding journal my thoughts about what I was seeing. The joy, the tears of happiness, the luck at having found these birds when I did. It all just felt right. I even got to hear two males call back and forth in the manner that was mentioned in all the field guides. A yelping "ow-owdle-ow!" 

I wrote the following in my journal:

"I'm ever so thankful for my life, my many friends and relatives, for my love, and the time I have spent and hope to spend in this world. I will do whatever I can for these birds and if I ever do become a [duck] hunter, I will never lift a finger to harm them."

These birds mean so much to me, I'm so glad I was able to see them this day and hopefully more throughout the season. I leave you with a video from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology that discusses the distinctive cry of the bird and to give you a perspective of what I see when I think of these birds. I'm so happy to have shared this with you and am happy that I got to see a bird that I feel like I've waited for a lifetime to see.

Thank you for reading and as always, happy birding ^_^