The Goldeneye inhabits boreal forests all over the northern hemisphere. They are migratory birds. In North America, their breeding habitat extends from Alaska east to Quebec and south to the American-Canadian border. Their wintering grounds include most of the United States and the pacific coast all the way up to Alaska, with the exceptions of some inland areas in the southern states.(Eadie,1995) On the evergreen campus, they can be seen in Eld Inlet off the beach from mid-November into the winter months. They particularly like to gather off the beach near snyder cove.(Need to cite myself.)

Typically, they are found in both freshwater and saltwater habitats.(Sibley, 2003) In their coastal wintering range, they are largly found on large bodies of sheltered saltwater habitats such as bays and inlets. Farther inland, they are found on large lakes. In their breeding range, they are found on lakes, rivers, and wetlands surrounded by mature forest. (Eadie,1995) They have a preference for acidic wetlands and lakes that are more hostile to fish, as fish are often in direct competition with the goldeneyes for invertebrete prey.(Nummi, 2012) They are particuarly fond of shallow water and intertidal habitats, as this is where they have to spend the least energy in finding food.(Ouellet, 2009)

 The Goldeneye is a diving duck.(Sibley, 2003) It is highly adabtable in its feeding habits. While plant material isn’t uncommon in the winter months, it mainly feeds on insects, crustasians, and mollusks. Crustacians and mollusks, in particular, make up their diet in the winter when they are closer to the coast, and insects make up their diet in the summer when they are farther inland.  Crabs, in particular, make up a large part of their diet in the winter months.(Cottam, 1939) As part of my observations, I witnessed a goldeneye holding a crab in its bill and repetitively opening and closing its beak on the creature before swallowing it. Though I am not entirely sure what the function of this beak behavior was (as they apparently swallow the animals whole), it is easy to hypothesis that it was trying to get a grip on the struggling prey so that it could be swallowed.(Need to cite myself.)

Insects are also a particularly large part of the diet, accounting for as much as 27% for adults and 70% for juviniles of all food consumed. While the larvae of flies and aquatic insects predominately make up this part of the diet, they are also known to take other insects such as ants. Occasionally, the goldeneye will also catch fish.(Cottam, 1939) They take most their prey within 2 meters of the waters surface. (Ouellet, 2009)

The male goldeneye has a complex courtship display. The most common move is the headthrow, in which the bird rears out of the water, extends its head back to its rump, lets out a buzz, and then flicks its head back. Some other common moves are the masthead, the bowsprit, and nodding. The masthead involves lowering its neck, over the water, flicking its head, and bringing it back up.  In the bowsprit, it puffs out its cheek feathers and thrusts the neck forward, holding it rigidly at a 45% angle. Nodding is the very simple behaviors of extending the neck up and down in rapid succession. Many of these moves are combined.(Benjamin, 1959)

The female responds with a similar courtship display, though some of its moves differ. The female performs a move called the dip where she tips forward, raising her rump and lowering her head into the water. Precopulary acts include ritualized displays of drinking, wing stretching, bill shaking, and preening, among others. Fightning between birds is infrequent.(Benjamin, 1959)

Copulation is short, usually lasting under 15 seconds. The male mounts the female, grabbing her head feathers in his beak and beating his wings.(Benjamin, 1959) It is not known if pairs mate over multiple seasons, though lifelong pairings have been reported in the closely related Barrow’s Goldeneye. (Gauthier, 1987)

The common goldeneye is a cavity nester, laying their eggs in the cavities of trees or human-made nest boxes. They lay from 5 to 16 green eggs. The young are born reletively independent, able to leave the nest box and find their own food with minimal parental care. (Eadie, 1995)

Conspecific brood parasitism is common in the goldeneye. The goldeneye female will often lay her eggs in the nests of other goldeneye females to increase her own reproductive success. It has been hypothesized that the commenality of this behavior is due to the minimal paternal care investment made in the offspring, making parasitism low cost, thus, facilitating little need to evolve a defense mechanism against it. It has also been suggested that female goldeneyes generally paratisize closely related individuals, further lowering the cost of paratasizm as these individuals share genes and thus still benefit, from a reproductive standpoint, in raising offspring closely related to them. (Malte, 1982)

Study of Paratisism patterns show that frequently used nest sites are parasitized more often than less frequently used ones. Females also prefer to parasitize broods earlier in the breeding season than later. This makes sense, as both of these features tend to favor offspring survival.(Poysa, 2003) In broods where the nest is parasitized early, the host females lays fewer eggs. Nest size also tends to be larger in parasatised nests.(Malte, 1982)

Their wings make a whistling sound when they are flying. (Cottam, 1939)

The earliest fossil finds for the mergini, or diving duck family, are from the Pleistocene.(Livezey, 1995) The fossil species Bucephala Ossivalis, a duck that has been placed into the same genus as the golden eye, dates back to this era.(Eadie, 1995) Common Goldeneye is most closely related to the Barrow’s Goldeneye, though studies have show a somewhat large genetic gap between the two species. The species as a whole shows a trend towards increasing sexual dimorphism. The two species of goldeneyes, in fact, are considered the most sexually dimorphic species in the mergini family.(Livezey, 1995)

Eadie, J. M., M. L. Mallory and H. G. Lumsden. 1995. Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula), The Birds of North America Online (A. Poole, Ed.). Ithaca: Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Retrieved from the Birds of North America Online: http://0-bna.birds.cornell.edu.cals.evergreen.edu/bna/species/170doi:10.2173/bna.170

Sibley, David Allen. 2003. The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Western North America, Alfred a. Knopf, New York: 90.

BirdLife International, 2012. Bucephala clangula. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 06 December 2012.

Cottam, Clarence. 1939. Food Habits of North American Diving Ducks. United States Department of Agriculture:56-65.

Livezey, B. C. 1995. Phylogeny and evolutionary ecology of modern seaducks (Anatidae: Mergini). Condor 97:233-255.

Benjamin Dane, Charles Walcott and William H. Drury. 1959. The Form and Duration of the Display Actions of the Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). Behaviour, Vol. 14, No. 4:265-281

Poysa, Hannu. 2003. Parasitic common goldeneye (Bucephala clangula)
females lay preferentially in safe neighbourhoods. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 54:30–35.

Eadie, J. M., M. L. Mallory, and H. G. Lumsden. 1995. Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). In The Birds of North America, No. 170 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and The American Ornithologists’ Union, Washington, D.C.

Malte Andersson and Mats O. G. Eriksson. 1982. Nest Parasitism in Goldeneyes Bucephala clangula: Some Evolutionary Aspects. The American Naturalist , Vol. 120, No. 1:1-16

Ouellet Jean-Francois, Guillemette M. and Robert M. 2009. Spatial distribution and habitat selection of Barrow’s and Common goldeneyes wintering in the St. Lawrence marine Canadian Journal Of Zoology, 88(3):306-314.That article in ornus scandinavus http://0-www.jstor.org.cals.evergreen.edu/stable/3676411?seq=5

Nummi Petri, Va¨a¨na¨nen Veli-Matti, and Rask Martti. 2012. Competitive effects of fish in structurally simple habitats: perch, invertebrates, and goldeneye in small boreal lakes. Aquatic Sciences, Vol. 74 (2):343-350.

Gauthier, Gilles. 1987. Further Evidence of Long-Term Pair Bonds in Ducks of the Genus Bucephala. The Auk, Vol. 104, No. 3:521-522

The Goldeneye population is relatively stable, though its population stability is closely tied to the availability of its food source. Deforestation and acid rain are among potential threats.(Eadie, 1995)  The Common Goldeneye is of least concern on the IUCN Redlist of threatened species.(IUCN, 2012)

Miranda Hoyle-Dodson is a undergraduate student at The Evergreen State College. She has lived almost her entire in the Olympia/Lacey area and has had an avid interest in local fauna from a young age. She received her first field journal as a young teenager and has been identifying birds ever since.