THE-C9HD9R 



Volume XX January-February, 1918 Number 1 



THE BARROW GOLDEN-EYE IN THE OKANAGAN VALLEY, 

 BRITISH COLUMBIA 



By J. A. MUNRO 



THROUGHOUT the interior of British Columbia the Barrow Golden-eye 

 {Clang id a island ica) is an abundant summer visitant, but, unlike the com- 

 mon Golden-eye, this species does not winter on the fresh water lakes 

 where it is so numerous during the nesting season. Throughout the winter 

 months it is found on the seacoast, in the many sheltered estuaries from Puget 

 Sound to Hecate Strait and Dixon Inlet. In seven seasons of winter collecting 

 in the Okanagan district, I have taken but five specimens of islandica. The 

 birds first begin to appear on Okanagan Lake early in March, but are not plen- 

 tiful until the small mountain lakes are free of ice, early in April. 



The lakes selected for courtship, and later for the rearing of the young, are 

 usually quite open and free of tules; hence the Golden-eyes are always conspic 

 uous and much easier to study than ducks that breed in the sloughs and hide 

 their young in the thick vegetation. Generally by the 15th of April each little 

 lake has its flock of courting Golden-eyes, often thirty or forty on a sheet of 

 water of fifty acres extent or less. In these flocks adults and immatures are 

 present in about equal numbers. The young of either sex do not breed until 

 the second year, and do not assume their breeding dress until the second fall 

 after they are hatched, that is, when they are over a year old. 



Small flocks of young females are seen during the summer, generally on 

 lakes where there are no adult females with broods of young. Specimens col- 

 lected, with undeveloped ovaries, had the bill dusky brown in color, sometimes 

 with slight yellow markings, whereas in the adult female the bill is dark 

 chrome yellow. In the spring, young males show a partially formed white cres- 

 cent at the base of the bill, partly white scapulars, and a few violet feathers on 

 the otherwise dull brown head. These immatures males leave the country with 

 the adult males in May, soon after the females have begun to brood their eggs. 

 I have taken only one male of this age in the summer (May 17, 1916) and have 



