A Lone Bufflehead on St. John

There’s a very unusual duck for St. John. It’s over in the small pond behind Frank Bay that is designated as a bird sanctuary. During the day, it has been hanging out in the middle of the pond diving down to get food – they mostly eat underwater plants, small crustaceans and insects.

I have seen a number of migratory ducks that regularly visit the Virgin Islands in the winter, including blue-winged teals, green-winged teals, ruddy ducks, scaups, and last year a northern shoveler. But no buffleheads, so I was eager to check it out.

The bufflehead was first spotted by Victoria Beasley, a wildlife biologist for the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Division of Fish and Wildlife. She has been conducting waterbird surveys on St. John over the past year as part of a DFW Wildlife Restoration program supported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“I was out on a regular survey at Frank Bay when I noticed a duck I did not immediately recognize. I had an ID book on hand that I quickly referenced and there was no mistaking that this was a bufflehead duck. Based on its known home range, I knew this was a very rare and notable sighting. I have since gone back to Frank Bay several times, and a month later this adventurous duck was still enjoying its time at Frank Bay. I highly recommend stopping by and seeing it for yourself,” said Beasley.

If you do go look for it, you might not see it right away because it spends a lot of time under the water. It will make a short dive, surface, and then quickly dive down again. You might only catch its long, stiff tail as it takes its next dive. Buffleheads rarely come on land.

Herbert Raffaele, author of a well-known guidebook “Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands” (1989), noted that the bufflehead was “accidental” in the West Indies, “known only from a single specimen collected in the late 1800s in Puerto Rico.” A more recent online app – All Birds, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and northern Lesser Antilles – records two sightings on Puerto Rico in December 2013, and one in St. Martin in 2004.

I am familiar with buffleheads because some of them winter around New York City. In fact, I got up close to one in Jamaica Bay on Thanksgiving Day. The males are most noticeable because of their stylish black and white look.