It was a windy and cold day in the Province of
Friesland, the Netherlands, while the early Spring sun loved to shine weakly on
my skin. I knelt down close to the water surface on the grass. I felt the wind
creep through a small patch of clothing – well, I didn’t care.
The Common Goldeneye
male (Bucephala clangula) was about
to display to impress the young females swimming and swarming around him. He
danced and slowed down, he danced and slowed down. He made a rattling sound ‘prrrrt’
and his head flipped back across his neck. Then he used his webbed paw to spray
droplets all over the place. What a smashing dance!
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| Male Goldeneye display with splashing webbed paw |
Goldeneye’s are mainly found in Winter and early
Spring in the Netherlands, surviving in a migratory way. In Summer they nest close
to clear and streaming waters in tree holes in taiga habitat in Scandinavia, Northern
America, Canada and Northern Russia.
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| Male Goldeneye courtship to impress 'the ladies' |
The males are mostly white with black
feathers on the back and with glossy black-green feathers on the head. They
have a big white oval spot on their cheeks and of course, what they are named
after, a yellow-golden eye. The females are less striking in appearance with a
brown-red head, grey feathers across the body and a white collar. Juvenile
females still have a pink stripe at the tip of the beak and no distinct white collar just yet.
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| A juvenile female Goldeneye |
The male display did work, one of the females was getting ready to mate and signalled the male. Somehow the male lost his interest in the females. Is it because he hasn't enough experience e.g. it's a young male doing this for the first time? Was it just play as to exercise for 'the real deal'? I didn't see the mating that day, so I suppose his display was an act of impressing the females at hand to wait for the exact moment to really 'use' his qualities.
