Oceanography | Vol.29, No.1
BY C H E RY L LY N DY BA S
The Story Behind the Story
Ripple Marks
LIFE IN ROUGH SEAS
For Harlequin Ducks, Home is Churning Rapids and Pounding Surf
long-ago glaciers, and picks his way down
to the water’s edge.
His quarry lies where rock meets ocean
at jagged underwater ledges: the harle-
quin duck (Histrionicus histrionicus), one
of North America’s smallest and most
beautiful sea ducks. Although scientists
have solved several mysteries about
the harlequin’s unusual predilections for
rough seas and a salmon-like lifestyle,
others remain open.
DUCK OF WHITE WATERS
To find answers, Paton has come to
count harlequins along Narragansett
Bay’s shoreline. In the 1800s, the ducks’
numbers along the East Coast peaked
at 5,000 to 10,000. Then, overhunting,
as well as habitat loss and other factors,
reduced them to about 1,000 before
hunting along the Eastern Seaboard was
banned in the late 1980s. With restrictions
in place, East Coast harlequin numbers
have rebounded to some 1,800 ducks.
Rhode Island’s rocky coast—Beavertail
in particular—is a winter haunt for these
brave surfers. With adult males’ dark blue
heads, light blue bodies, and chestnut
sides (adult females are a brownish-gray),
the ducks’ common name comes from a
likeness to the colorfully dressed charac-
ter Harlequin in Commedia dell’arte. Their
species name is derived from the Latin
word histrio: actor.
The birds are also known as lords and
ladies, offers Paton, lifting his binoculars
into the stiff wind to search for “bobbers”—
harlequins that dive down to snag a mus-
sel or crab, then somehow manage to pop
up again in the very same spot. White-
eyed diver, blue streak, and rock duck are
among the harlequin’s other names, for
good reason. “How these ducks can sur-
vive right at the crests of breaking waves
is a marvel,” Paton says as he points to a
harlequin that appears and disappears in
roiling waters.
Harlequin ducks are split into two pop-
ulations, Pacific and Eastern, according
to Ducks, Geese, and Swans of North
America. The Pacific is the larger, at about
200,000 birds. They breed from Alaska
south to British Columbia and inland to the
northern section of the Rocky Mountains.
Eastern harlequins, the smaller popula-
tion, nest primarily in Quebec, Labrador,
and Newfoundland. Satellite radio- tracking
and genetic data show two sub-parts to
The sea has gone the color of old silver, its
surface as smooth as a wave-worn shell.
It’s an hour before dawn on this −12°C
(10°F) day in January at Rhode Island’s
Beavertail State Park, a 153-acre rocky
promontory shaped like a beaver’s tail.
Beavertail juts out from the southern end
of Conanicut Island into Narragansett Bay
and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Another hour passes; sunup is on the
horizon. Fierce winds begin to blow,
whipping the once-calm ocean below
Beavertail’s boulder-strewn cliffs into a
froth. Stepping onto the park’s steep—
and today, ice-covered—path to the sea
might feel like falling into gray oblivion.
Indeed, local newspapers once hailed the
area’s vistas, but warned that “the drop to
the Atlantic is an easy walk to eternity for
those not sure of foot.”
Peering through tangled, seemingly life-
less briars along a barely there track, Peter
Paton, an ornithologist at the University of
Rhode Island (URI), begins his descent.
Tough going awaits; the cliffs lie exposed
to constant erosion from sea and storm.
Covering his face with a scarf against the
biting cold, he carefully makes his way
around enormous boulders dropped by
Oceanography | Vol.29, No.1
All photos courtesy
of Ilya Raskin