Family: Anatidae, Ducks and Geese view all from this family

Description 20 1/2 -22" (52-56 cm). Breeding male has white neck, back, and shoulders, black breast and belly. Head light olive green with large, white, black-rimmed "spectacles." Female is mottled buff, with pale buff "spectacles" and large bill feathered at base.

Endangered Status The Spectacled Eider is on the U.S. Endangered Species List. It is classified as endangered in Alaska. The Alaska population, which breeds on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, has declined rapidly, as much as 95 percent, in recent years. The reasons are unknown, but some factors may be an increase in predators relative to eider numbers and the ingestion of lead shot. Some other duck species plummeted in number because of overhunting, and it is possible that predators turned to eiders for sustenance. The wintering sites of the Spectacled Eider, openings in the ice in the frozen Bering Sea, were not discovered until 1995. Surveys made then ensured biologists that these birds still existed in number worldwide, even though the Alaska breeding population had crashed.

Habitat Coastal tundra during breeding season; inshore waters during most of year.

Nesting 4-9 greenish or olive-buff eggs in a down-lined depression in the tundra near fresh or brackish water.

Range Breeds along northern and western coasts of Alaska. Winters off Alaska Peninsula and eastern Aleutians, winters in Bering Sea.

Voice Usually silent; a soft ah-hoo!

Discussion During the winter the Spectacled Eider's diet consists largely of mussels and other mollusks, which it captures in deep dives over submerged ledges and reefs, but on its tundra breeding grounds this duck feeds mainly on aquatic insects, crustaceans, and the seeds of water plants. The largest breeding concentration was until recently on the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta, where some 70,000 of the world's 200,000 pairs of Spectacled Eiders once nested.