Bird of the Week – Goldeneye

This is a bonus week, because it is hard to talk about one of Alaska’s Goldeneye species without comparing it to the other. And Alaska boasts two species of Goldeneyes. Common Goldeneye occurs across much of North America. We see them in breeding plumage here. The male has a roundish white patch between the eye and the bill. By comparison, the Barrow’s Goldeneye is less common, occurring most often in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and has a crescent-shaped white patch between the eye and bill. You can see that the black and white patterns on their backs are different…