American Wigeon

Published by the Smithsonian Institution between the 1920s and the 1950s, the Bent life history series of monographs provide an often colorful description of the birds of North America. Arthur Cleveland Bent was the lead author for the series. The Bent series is a great resource and often includes quotes from early American Ornithologists, including Audubon, Townsend, Wilson, Sutton and many others.

Bent Life History for the American Wigeon – the common name and sub-species reflect the nomenclature in use at the time the description was written.

BALDPATE
MARECA AMERICANA (Gmelin)

I have always thought that the proper name for this species is the American widgeon, for it is certainly very closely related to and much resembles in many ways its European relative. The name widgeon is applied by gunners to various species of fresh-water ducks which they can not recognize, especially to the females; gadwalls, pintails, and the present species seem to be very confusing to sports- men and are usually all lumped together as “widgeons.” This name does well enough in the fall and winter, when associated with other species, but when seen in the spring, in the full glory of its nuptial plumage, with its glistening white crown, the name baldpate seems more appropriate; the name baldpate always suggests to my mind the mated pairs of the handsome ducks that I have so often seen swimming in these little ponds or streams of the western plains or springing into the air, if we drove too near, with a great display of their striking color patterns.

Spring: The baldpate is not one of the earliest migrants; the ice has long since disappeared and spring is well under way before it starts, and many of the birds do not arrive in their breeding grounds in the Northern States until the latter part of May. Turner (1886) says of its arrival at St. Michael, Alaska:

It arrives about the 26th of May or even later. It is not at all gregarious, being found solitary or in pairs. It frequents the marshes, preferably those which are overflowed by the higher tides when it arrives. As soon as the season is advanced, the greater part of the snow is gone, and the little rivulets are full of muddy water, they resort to these places for food. They seem to delight in shoveling among the mud in search for their food. They plunge their heads at times completely under the soft soil to obtain a tender root or slug.

Mr. Aretas A. Saunders writes me, of its arrival in Montana, that it “arrives on its breeding grounds in the latter part of May. It is not mated before arrival, like the mallard and gadwall, but is seen more frequently in flocks of 5 to 15, during the first part of the spring migration.”

Courtship: Evidently the mating occurs after its arrival on its brL 3ding grounds. I have never seen the courtship of this species, but it probably does not differ materially from that of the European widgeon, which is described under that species.

Dr. Alexander Wetmore (1920) describes the courtship flight of the baldpate, as follows:

The mating ifight of this duck resembles that of the preceding species (gadwall), but is performed with more dash and speed. The birds fly swiftly and erratically. The males dart ahead of the female setting and decurving their wings and throwing their heads up, exhibiting their striking markings to the best advantage. The female calls qua.awk, qua-atvk and the males whistle whew whew constantly during this per- formance. Occasionally as a pair swung in low over the water the male darted ahead and, with decurved wings and head thrown up, scaled down to the surface. Two males and a single female invariably took part in the display flight which began, as in the gadwall, by the males approaching the female, bowing and whis- thing and then following her as she rose in the air.

Nesting: In North Dakota in 1901 we found the baldpate breeding abundantly, principally on the islands in the larger lakes. The baldpate is a late breeder, very few of the eggs being laid before June 1, and the majority of the sets are not completed until the second week in June or later. The greatest breeding grounds of this species were on the four small islands in the western end of Stump Lake, so graphi- cally described by my companion Mr. Herbert K. Job (1898) under the appropriate title “The Enchanted Isles.” These islands are now included in the Stump Lake Reservation. The islands were devoid of trees but supported a rank growth of grasses, tall coarse weeds, and various herbaceous plants, as well as several tall thick clumps of Fhragmites communis, and patches of wild roses; they were high in the centers, sloping gradually down to gravelly beaches, with numer- ous loose rocks and bowlders scattered over them. Here, on June 15, 1901, we found no less than 15 nests of baldpates; probably there were more nests, which we did not find, as it was raining very hard when we explored the island where they were breeding most abun- dantly, so we made only a hurried search of about half an hour, find- ing 12. nests in this short time. We also found here numerous nests of other ducks, mallards, gadwalls, pintails, lesser scaup ducks, and white-winged scoters, besides a breeding colony of double-crested cormorants and large numbers of nesting ring-billed gulls and com- mon terns. Though we were tramping around in a drenching downpour, the cloud of gulls and terns screaming overhead and the ducks flushing under our feet every few steps created enough excitement to make us forget our discomfort.

The nest of the baldpate is built on dry ground. often at a considerable distance from the water, in a slight hollow generally well lined with bits of dry grass and weed stems, with a plentiful supply of light- gray down surrounding the eggs, which increases in quantity as in- cubation advances. The bird frequently covers the eggs with the down when she leaves the nest, completely concealing them and making the nest almost invisible, even in an open situation, which is often selected. The nests which I found on the islands described above were located as follows: The first was well concealed in the center of a thick clump of goldenrod growing on the beach; it was lined with dried leaves and rubbish, with very little down around the eight fresh eggs. The second was in the center of a clump of nettles near the upper edge of a stony beach; it contained eight fresh eggs which were laid on the bare stones, one of them plainly visible in the center of the nest, and surrounded by a little down; it contained 10 eggs and a good supply of down two weeks later. The third nest was on higher ground, concealed in rather tall prairie grass; the 11 eggs in it were heavily incubated; it was profusely lined with down, mixed with bits of dry grass and weeds. The. 12 nests found on June 15 were mostly under rose bushes, among the rocks, many of them in open situations; they contained from 9 to 11 eggs each. One of the nests contained a white-winged scoter’s egg and one an egg of the lesser scaup duck, both of which were nesting on the island.

According to Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1884), Kcnmcott found several nests of the b~ildpatc, on the Yukon, fully half a mile from the river:

He invariably found the nest among dry leaves, upon high, dry ground, eithei under large trees or in thick groves of small ones, frequently among thick spruces. The nest is rather small, simply a depression among the leaves, but thickly lined with down, with which, after incubation is begun, the eggs are covered when left by the parent. The nest is usually placed at the foot of a tree or hush, with generally no attempt at concealment. The female, when started from her nest, rises silently into the air, and usually flies to the nearest water, though sometimes she will alight on the ground a few rods distant.

The nest of the baldpate can only with difficulty be distinguished from that of the gadwall, as explained under the latter species. A careful study of the color patterns in the wings of the two females will heii the collector to recognize the female as she flies from the nest. And the nest is distinguishable on careful comparison. The down in the baldpate’s nest is lighter and smaller; it is “light drab” in color, with whitish centers and conspicuous whitish tips. The breast feathers in the nest are either pure white or with pale brown- ish or grayish centers:

Eggs: From the writings of others I infer that the baldpate lays from 6 to 12 eggs, but, from my own experience, I should say that the usual full set conzisted of from 9 to 11 eggs. The eggs are absolutely indistinguishable, with any degree of certainty, from those of the European widgeon or the gadwall, though, as a rule, the bald- pate’s eggs are slightly more elongated and of a purer, deeper cream color than those of the gadwall. They are creamy white in color, varying from deep cream to nearly white and are nearly elliptical ovate in shape. The shell is clear, smooth, rather thin and some- what glossy, resembling in color and texture certain types of hen’s eggs:

The measurements of 81 eggs in the United States National Museum and the author’s collections average 53.9 by 38.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 60 by 40, 58.2 by 43.2, 50.5 by 38 and 54 by 36 millimeters.

Young: I can not find any definite data to the period of incubation, but the European bird is said to incubat !cr 24 or 25 days, and our bird probably sits for the same period. This duty is performed by the female exclusively, though the male does not wholly desert her until the molting season arrives. The care of the young also rests with the female, and she guards them with jealous devo- tion. Nelson (1887) relates the following incident:

I once came suddenly upon a female widgeon, with her brood of 10 or a dozen little ducklings, in a small pond. As I approached the parent uttered several low, guttural notes and suddenly .~luttered across the water and fell heavily at my feet, so close that I could almost touch her with my gun. Meanwhile the young swam to the opposite side of the pond and began to scramble out into the grass. Willing to observe the old bird’s maneuvers, I continued to poke at her with the gun as she fluttered about my feet, but she always managed to elude my strokes until, just as the last of her brood climbed out of the water, she slyly edged away, and suddenly flew off to another pond some distance. I then ran as quickly as possible to the point where the ducks left the water, yet, though but a few moments had elapsed, the young had concealed themselves so thoroughly that, in spite of the fact that the grass was only S or 4 inches high and rather sparse, I spent half an hour in fruitless search.

By the last of August or the first of September the young are able to fly and are flocking with their parents for the autumnal flight. Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1884) quote Kennicott as saying:

The young, while unable to fly, are frequently found seeking the shelter of grassy lakes. As soon, however, as they can fly they return to their favorite river shores and open feeding places, where they obtain aquatic insects, a few small shells, and the seeds and roots of various plants. In the fall the broods often separate before leaving for the South; this they do about the middle of September.

Plumages: Ridgway (1887) describes the downy young as follows:

Above, dark olive brown, relieved by a spot of greenish buff on posterior border of each wing, one on each side of back, and one on each side of rump; top of head and bind neck, dark olive, like back; rest of head and neck, with lower parts, pale olive buff or fulvous, the side of the head with a dusky streak, extending from bill, tbrough eye, to occiput.

When about 4 or 5 weeks old, in August, the young baldpate as- sumes its first complete plumage, the wings being the last to reach full development. In this first mottled plumage the sexes are much alike, but in the male the gray feathers of the back begin to appear in September and the progress toward maturity proceeds rapidly; the brown mottled feathers of the back are replaced by the gray ver- miculated feathers of the adult and the mottling in the breast dis- appears, leaving the clear vinaceous color of maturity; so that by December or January the most forward birds have acquired a plum- age which closely resembles that of the old bird, except on the wings, which still show the gray mottling on the lesser wing coverts pecul- iar to young birds. In some precocious individuals the lesser wing coverts become nearly pure white before the first nuptial season, but in most cases the immature wing is retained until the first postnup- tial molt, which is complete. With both old and young birds the molt into the eclipse plumage begins in June and the molt out of this into the adult winter dress is not completed until October or November. At this molt the white lesser wing coverts are assumed by the young, old and young birds becoming indistinguishable. The seasonal molts of the adult consist of the prolonged double molt of the body plumage, into the eclipse in June and July and out of the eclipse in September and October, and the single molt of the flight feathers in August. Old males in the eclipse plumage closely resem- ble females, except for the wings, which are always distinctive.

In the female the sequence of plumages is similar. During the first winter and spring, young birds make considerable progress toward maturity, but can be recognized by the immature wings. The fully adult plumage is acquired during the second fall and winter.

Food: The baldpate feeds on or near the surface by dabbling in the mud or tipping up in shallow water. Where not disturbed it is liable to feed at any time during the day, though it is always more active in the early morning or toward night. But, as it seldom enjoys much security, it more often spends the day skulking in the reeds, dozing on some sunny bank or playing about on open water at a safe distance from land; then as dusk comes on it repairs in small flocks to its feeding grounds, where it can feed in safety during the greater part of the night. Its food is largely vegetable, consisting mainly of the seeds and roots of grasses and various water plants. Dr. John C. Phillips (1911) records the contents of stomachs of this species, taken in Massachusetts, as entirely vegetarian, consisting of “pond- weed, wild celery, water-lily seeds (Brasertia), burweed, and smart: weed seeds (Polygonurn hydro piper), also “mineral matter 65 per cent.” Dawson (1909) says that in Washington, “in late January and February, they confine their feeding largely to the water-soaked fields, digging up the young grass with their hills and eating roots and all.”

Its well-known habit of robbing the canvasback on its feeding grounds in Chesapeake Bay has been often described; the baldpate, being a poor diver and yet extravagantly fond of the succulent roots of the, so-called, wild celery, has to be content with what small bite of this delicacy the canvasback Jets drop or what it can steal from this expert diver on its return to the surface. In its winter home in the Southern States it feeds largely in thc broken-down rice fields, where it finds an abundance of food and becomes very fat. Audu- bon (1840) says that it eats “beechnuts, small fry, and leeches .” Warren (1890) found that two baldpates, taken in Pennsylvania, “had fed almost entirely on insects, chiefly beetles and crickets.” Mr. F. C. Baker (1889), who dissected a large number, taken in Florida, found that their stomachs “contained shells of Truncatella subeylindrica (Say) and small seeds

Mr. Douglas C. Mabbott (1920) says:

The vegetable lood of the baldpate for the eight months from September to April averaged 93.23 per cent. This consisted of the following items in the order of their importance: Pondweeds, 42.82 per cent; grasses, 13.9; algae, 7.7]; sedges, 7.41; wild celery and waterweed, 5.75; water milfoils, 3.48; duckweeds, 2.2; smartweeds, 1.47; arrow grass, 0.36: water lilies, 0.26: coontail, 0.24; and miscellaneous, 7.63 per cent.

Animal food amounted to 6.77 per cent of the contents of the 229 baldpate stomachs included in the computation. Even this figure is probably unduly large, because the greater part of the animal matter coOsistC(l of snails found in the gizzards of a series of ducks from southern Oregon, the only lot of birds found feeding almost exclusively 11pm such food. More tl~an nine-tenths of the animal food (6.25 per cent of the total) consisted of mollusks, the remainder being made up of insecta (0.42 per cent) and miscellaiieous ma&ter (0.1 per cent).

Behavior: When alarmed the baldpate rises quickly from the water, almost perpendicularly, making a rattling sound with its wings, and flies rapidly away. Its flight is swift, strong, and direct; when migrating or when flying to or from its breeding grounds it flies in small flocks of irregular formation and at no great height from the ground or water. On its breeding grounds it is quite tame, but during the shooting season it becomes very shy. The drake is easily recognized by its striking color pattern, displaying so much white in the wings, the white crown, and the white belly. But the duck might easily be mistaken for the female gadwall, though it has a white unspotted breast and shows more white in the greater wing coverts, which is quite conspicuous as the duck flies away from its nest. It can readily be distinguished from the mallard duck by its smaller size and by the absence of the conspicuous white borders of the blue speculum. Doctor Townsend (1905) has called attention to the fact “that the under surface of the wings of the baldpate is gray, that of ~he mallard snowy white.”

The ordinary call note of the male baldpate is a whistling whew, whew, whew, which is uttered on the wing or while feeding and swimming. Mr. J. H. Bowles (1909) has well described its vocal powers, as follows:

Their principal call is a lisping, throaty whistle, repeated three times in quick succession. It is surprisingly light in character for the size of the bird, and serves to confirm the bird’s position on the list next to the teals. Although quite imposaible to describe, the note is rather easily imitated when heard a few times, and frequently proves a valuable addition to the repertoire of the wild-fowl hunter. The only other note I have heard them utter is a low, short chattering, somewhat resembling that of the pintail, but greatly reduced in volume. Their quacks, or squawks, of alarm also exprees the limit of terror, but are still pathetically inadequate in compari. on with those, say, of a hen mallard.

Doctor Yorke (1899) describes the cry as “a whistle like the last note of a Bartramian sandpiper.” The female has a soft guttural note, which can hardly be called a “quack” and a louder cry, which Eaton (1910) says resemble “the syllables kaow, kaow.” Mr. Aretas A. Saunders writes to me in regard to the notes of this species:

They also rarely quack like the mallard and gadwall, but this note is lees nasal than the mallard’s and not so loud and sonorous as the gadwall’s. The whistle differs in pitch with different individuals, and one may frequently hear whistles of two or three different pitches coming from the same flock of birds.

On their breeding grounds baldpates are associated on friendly terms with various other species, as has already been shown above. In their winter feeding resorts they associate with canvasbacks, redheads, and scaup ducks, stealing from them what bits of food they can grab. Ne]tje Blanchan (1898) says of this performance: Such piracy keeps the ducks in a state of restless excitement, which is further induced by the whistling of the widgeons’ wings in their confused manner of flight in and around the feeding grounds. Here they wheel about in the air; splash and splutter the water; stand up in it and work their wings, half run, half fly along the surface; and in many disturbing ways make themselves a nuisance to the hunter in ambush.

Doctor Townsend (1905) describes similar behavior with the American coot, as follows:

I have seen a flock of five baldpates eagerly following half a dozen American coots that were frequently diving in a pond and bringing up weeds from the bottom. The baldpates gathered about the coots as soon as they emerged on the surface and helped themselves to the spoils, tipping up occasionally to catch some sinking weed. They seemed even to be able to perceive the coot coming up through the water, for they would begin to swim toward the spot just before the Coot emerged. The coots appeared to take the pilfering as a matter of course; in fact they pilfered from each other, and continued to work for themselves and the poachers.

Such behavior has earned for the baldpate the local name of “poacher.”

Fall: On the fall migration the baldpate starts rather early in September, well in advance of the heavy frosts.

On its migration in Montana, according to Mr. Aretas A. Saunders,- it associates with many other species of ducks, most frequently with the shoveler. Flocks of these two species, mixed, are quite common in the spring migration. I have observed, with this species, on a small pond in the spring migration, the following other species: Gadwall, shoveller, blue-winged teal, pintnil, lesser scaup, goldeneye, and buffie-head. In the large flocks of ducks that gather on the larger alkali ponds in the fall migration, this is one of the commonest species, and is associated commonly with the shoveller and lesser scaup.

Game: As a game bird it will not rank in importance with several others, though its vegetable diet, especially when it has been feeding on the Chesapeake with the canvasbacks, makes its flesh very palatable and desirable. It is a favorite too with many sportsmen on account of its swiftness, its boldness, and its readiness to come to decoys. Blanchan (1898) says:

The gentlemen hidden behind “blinds” on the “duck shores” of Maryland and the sloughs of the interior and with a flock of wooden decoys floating near by, or the nefarious market gunner in his “sink boat” and with a dazzling reflector be- hind the naptha lamp on the front of his scow, bag by fair means and foul immense numbers of baldpatcs every season, yet so prolific is the bird, and so widely distributed over this continent, that there still remain widgeons to shoot. That is the fact one must marvel at when one gazes on the results of a single night’s slaughtering in the Chesapeake country. The pothunter who uses a reflector to fascinate the flocks of ducks that, bedded for the night, swim blindly up to the sides of the boat, moving silently among them, often kills from 20 to 30 at a shot.

Winter: After loitering along its way for several weeks in a most leisurely manner, as if waiting for the young birds to fatten and grow strong the baldpate finally reaches its winter home before cold weather sets in, spreading out from its inland breeding range to winter largely on the coasts, as well as in the lower Mississippi Valley. Its winter habits in the Chesapeake Bay, which marks the northern limit of its winter abundance on the Atlantic coast, have been referred to above and have been well described by others. It is common on the coast of Louisiana associating with mallards, gadwalls, pintails, and lesser scaup ducks. On the Pacific coast it winters abundantly as far north as Puget Sound, though according to Bowles (1909) it is not so comtnon there as formerly; he says:

During fall, winter, and spring it is most numerous of all ducks in Washington, save possibly the bluebiis and scoters. Large numbers of them congregate upon the tide flats of Puget Sound, and the bird is abundant also on the interior waters.

Constant persecution, however, has greatly reduced their ranks, asia the case with the entire duck family, and possibly for this reason their migratory habits have under. gone a marked change. Eight or ten years ago they used to appear in enormous flocks during the first week in October, at which period I have seen on the Nisqually Flats, near Tacoma, what was estimated at about 500,000, all in the air at one time. For the past two or three years, however, no widgeon to speak of have appeared before November or December, and then in such greatly reduced numbers as to give rise to serious fear, not only as to the abundance, but as to the existence of future generations.

DISTRIBUTION
Breeding range: Northwestern North America. East to Hudson Bay, southeastern Manitoba (Shoal Lake), and formerly southern Wis- consin (Lake Koshkonong and Horicon marsh). South to northern Indiana (English Lake, rarely), perhaps northern Illinois, northern Nebraska (Cherry County), northern Colorado (Boulder County), northern Utah (Bear River), northwestern Nevada (Truckee Valley), and northeastern California (Modoc County). Seen in summer and probably breeding in northwestern New Mexico (Lake Burford) and northern Arizona (Mogollon Mountains). West to the interior of Oregon (Camp Harney) and Washington (Tacoma), central British Columbia (Fraser Valley), and central Alaska (Yukon River). North to northern Alaska (Kotzebue Sound) and northern Mackenzie (Frank- lin Bay).

Winter range: All of North America south of the Northern States. East to the Atlantic coast, rarely from southern New England (Bos- ton), and regularly from Maryland (Chesapeake Bay) southward. South to the Lesser Antilles (St. Thomas, Trinidad, Guadeloupe, St. Croix, etc.) and Costa Rica. West to the Pacific coast of Central America, Mexico, the United States, and southern British Columbia (Vancouver Island). North in the interior to southern Nevada (Pahrump Valley), central Utah (Pro vo), northeastern Colorado (Barr Lake), and southern Illinois (Ohio Valley).

Spring migration: Average dates of arrival: Rhode Island, New- port, March 19; Ontario, Ottawa, April 20; New York, western, March 23; Pennsylvania, Erie, March 24; Ohio, Oberlin, March 17; Michigan, southern, March 25; Colorado, Loveland, March 10; Ne- braska, central, March 17; Iowa, Keokuk, March 15; Minnesota, Heron Lake, March 29; Manitoba, southern, April 20; Saskatchewan, Indian Head, April 24; Alberta, Edmonton, April 17; Mackenzie, Fort Simpson, April 28; Alaska, Knik River, May 10, and Kowak River, May 22. Late dates of departure: North Carolina, Raleigh, April 26; Lower California, La Paz, April 1, and Colnett, April 1.

Fall migration: Early dates of arrival: Pennsylvania, Beaver, August 30; Massachusetts, Marthas Vineyard, August 31; Maine, Merrymeeting Bay, September 20; Connecticut, East Hartford, Sep- tember 29; Rhode Island, Middletown, September 20. Late dates of departure: Alaska, Kowak River, September 20, and St. Michael, October 1; Alberta, Edmonton, November 6; Ontario, Ottawa, No- vember 6; Nova Scotia, Sable Island, November 7: Iowa, Keokuk, November 18.

Casual records: Accidental in Bermuda (October, 1854, and Oc- tober, 1874), Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, and St. Thomas. Rare on migrations in Labrador (Hamilton Inlet, Natashquan, and Old Fort Bay, November 27, 1880) and New Brunswick (St.. John, January, 1880). Accidental in Aleutian, Commander, and Hawaiian Islands, in the Azores, British Isles (six or more records) in France, and in Japan.

Egg dates: Arctic America: Twenty-two records, June 5 to July 4; eleven records, June 16 to June 25. North and South Dakota: Twenty-one records, May 25 to July 13; eleven records, June 2 to 23. Alberta and Saskatchewan: Fourteen records, June 1 to 25; seven records, June 13 to 17. Utah: Nine records, May 5 to June 17; five records, May 10 to June 3.