Long-tailed ducks are rare on the Down East coast in summer, the experts say. Yet, here you see what appear to be two adults and an immature member of that species resting near the shore of Patten Bay Tuesday:
Here is that apparent juvenile in the water before it flew onto that rock:
This species of sea diving duck is perhaps most famous for being at the center of a socially-sensitive birder controversy in the 19th Century. For hundreds of years, these birds were called “old-squaw ducks” in the United States. This was expressly because the ducks can be extremely loud and garrulous in a group, making their original name-givers think of old Native American women when they got together. Thereafter, as Forbush points out, some birders (whose gender may be inferred) also called them “old wife ducks.”
Finally, in 2000, the American Ornithologists Union, our official bird name-designators, submitted to the pressure and changed the name to what Europeans called the birds: “long-tailed ducks” (Clangula hyemalis).
Here, you see the long-tails’ rest being disturbed by a pair of loquacious immature common mergansers:
Thankfully, long-tails don’t care what mergansers or humans say about them. They go on apparently spending more time under water than any of our other diving duck species, and they are among the deepest divers – they’ve been reported to forage about 200 feet below the water’s surface. (Images taken in Surry, Maine, on August 16, 2022.)