Here’s a welcome sight: buffleheads have been arriving in Great Cove recently. They’re among the last waterfowl to migrate here from Canada and they probably will overwinter in the Cove or nearby. They’re North America’s smallest diving duck at about 12-to-16 inches in length.
They also are the most interesting duck to watch, in my opinion. They often feed by diving as a group – now you see them, now you don’t. They disappear for about 15 seconds feeding off the bottom and then pop up individually like bobbing corks here and there: plink, plop, plink …. Then, they re-form their little close-order flotilla until they decide to dive again or fly in formation to another nearby feeding spot. They apparently eat mostly crustaceans and mollusks in the winter.
As you probably know (or guessed) bufflehead ducks are named after the males’ over-sized heads, which are shaped somewhat similarly to the foreparts of American bison:
Female buffleheads are not swellheads like their jaunty mates and usually are sedately dressed in tailored browns and grays with a white beauty mark on their cheeks. The girls often are vastly outnumbered by the guys in bufflehead groups and that seems to be just fine with everybody concerned.
(Primary image taken in Brooklin, Maine, on October 21, 2026; the male portrait is a Leighton Archive image taken in Brooklin.)