By Robert Lucke
Everyone going to Glacier National Park wants to see a grizzly bear or at least a moose or an elk. But few people know about the rare abundance of harlequin ducks that can be seen in the early spring on upper McDonald Creek from about the Lake McDonald Falls to Avalanche campground.
These amazing small ducks get their name harlequin because they are brightly spotted and look for all the world like they are dressed in a clown costume.
The Glacier National Park colony of harlequins is most amazing because they winter in Puget Sound, the Seattle sea port, all winter long. About this time of year the family flies all the way to McDonald Creek and nests close to the wildest water they can find and the female ducks proceed to have their babies. After the babies are born and the males decide everything is honky dory in the Glacier harlequin world, along about June or so they all fly back to Puget Sound. The mama ducks raise the young and fly back to Puget Sound in the fall.
It is not easy to see a Harlequin duck along McDonald Creek but it can be done and is one of the most amazing sights you will ever see in Glacier National Park.
Look for wild water and brightly colored small ducks and you will be seeing harlequins.
Follow the harlequins in Glacier National Park's web site where groups are led by rangers to see the harlequins up close and personal.
Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks has been studying Glacier's harlequin ducks for some time now both in Glacier and in wild streams that are close to McDonald Creek but maybe not even in Glacier. MFWP has banded together with British Columbia, Alberta, Washington and Wyoming to do a study about those wonderful part time Montana residents. Called the International Harlequin Duck Migration and Connectivity Project, this study will do much to let us know why harlequins do what they do and go where they go with such great regularity.
Here is MFWP's take on those wonderful Glacier ducks and the new study to learn more about them.
Harlequin Ducks
Harlequin ducks are small sea ducks that winter on the coast and migrate inland to breed on fast moving streams where the female hatched. They are slow to mature and reproduce, exhibit a boom or bust reproductive pattern, and are vulnerable to climate change. They typically choose nest sites within 1 meter of the water's edge and initiate incubation as stream volume starts to recede after peak spring runoff. Stream flow severity- higher stream flow, greater number of peaks, and elevate highest peak- has increased in recent history.
These processes are also predicted to become worse due to climate change, potentially flooding our increase number of harlequin duck nests. In the event of a nest failure there is no chance for a second clutch because males migrate back to the coast once the female initiates incubation. Females show strong nest site fidelity and are only known to breed in the drainages where they hatched. Montana's first statewide survey effort for the harlequin ducks was conducted in 2014. Fish, Wildlife and Parks and its partners documented 31 hens and 115 chicks. In 2015, we attempted to incomplete. In northwest Montana, Glacier National Park has consistently surveyed for harlequin ducks since the late 1980's and the population appears to be the only population in the western continental U.S. and western Canada that has not observed declines. On their breeding grounds, harlequin ducks have been disturbed or displaced by recreational boating, logging, mining, and road building operations. However, longer tern=m negative impacts on molting and wintering populations have been observed where harlequin ducks congregate in larger numbers. It took approximately 25 years for harlequin duck populations to recover after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The harlequin duck is a Species of Greatest Conservation Need in every Northwestern state in the U.S.
In Alberta, the harlequin is listed as a Species of Species Concern due to low population size and specific breeding requirements. Although harlequin ducks are not listed as an "at risk" species in British Columbia, the White Rock wintering/molting population has declined by nearly 50% between the early 1980's and 2015. In addition, more than 10,000 birds use the Strait of Georgia, BC for non-breeding habitat where the population declined 2.6% per year from 1999- 2011 (Crewe et al. 2012). Up to the mid 1990s, 21 birds banded in western Montana had been sighted off the coast of southern British Columbia.
More recently in 2015, a male harlequin duck captured and fitted with a platform transmitter terminal (PTT) in southern British Columbia spent its breeding season on Nyack Creek in Glacier National Park. Harlequins not only show strong mate fidelity. In addition, the males and females reunite on the wintering grounds after the breeding season raising concerns that Montana's breeding population of harlequin ducks are wintering/molting in areas with high rates of non-breeding population decline.
Recognizing that conservation efforts for harlequin ducks would benefit from research on how migration, connectivity, and fidelity to breeding and non-breeding habitat influence harlequin population persistence, biologists from several agencies in two provinces (British Columbia and Alberta), and three states (Montana, Washington, and Wyoming) agreed to expand and existing large-scale harlequin duck research project that was already investigating migration, connectivity, and fidelity in southwestern British Columbia. The expanded project is known as the International Harlequin Duck Migration and Connectivity Project.
Specific to Montana, the international project addresses 6 out of the 9 objectives outlined in the FWP Northwest Montana Terrestrial Climate Change Species Monitoring and Conservation Plan. The project is also closely tied to conservation actions indentified in its State Wildlife Action Plan. Objectives of the project are:
1. Characterize breeding habitat use.
2. Identify local movement patterns n inland breeding streams.
3. Identify home range characteristics (i.e. size, core, area, distribution) of in land and winter range.
4. Through banding, better understanding site-fidelity and both adult and juvenile dispersal.
5. Identify timing of movement between in land breeding streams and coastal molting and wintering areas.
6. Indentify location of coastal molting and wintering areas.
7. Identify where birds from specific breeding populations (e.g. AB, MT, WY, WA) spend the winter.
8. Identify where birds wintering in the Salish Sea spend the breeding season.
9. Compare PTT and geolocator technologies.
10. Examine abundance/ trend on breeding areas.
11. Assess mercury concentration in breeding harlequin ducks.
In 2016, and collaborators marked 18 males and 17 females. Of those, 5 breeding pairs were marked in Montana. Males were banded and implanted with PTTs. Females were also banded, but instead of PTT implants, geolocators were attached to the color band. The PTTs allows biologist to receive data on a preprogrammed schedule via data downloads and generally provides more accurate location information. One morality occurred within the first week of capture. Although we were unable to rule out the potential for capture myopathy, an investigation of the recovered PTT and the surrounding area suggested that the duck may have been predated. Of the remaining 4 males, departure dates from breeding to molting areas ranged from June 4 to June 17 with initial arrival dates ranging from June 6 to June 21. Migration duration ranged from 1.7 to 9 days with distances between approximately 444 and 1118 miles. Stopover habitat consisted primarily of rivers and mountain streams while on bird made a single stop on a lake in Washington. Apparent molt areas were Port Angeles, WA for the Snyder Creek bird; Allison Harbour Provincial Park (Smith Sound), BC for the Upper McDonald Creek bird; Lyell Island, BC for the Grave Creek bird; and Read Island, AK for the Rock Creek bird.
For questions regarding the International Harlequin Dick Migration and Connectivity Project please contact Chris Hammond at 406-751-4582 or chammond@mt.gov.
