By Andrea Trigueros
The first bird Andrea ever really noticed was a Turquoise-browed Motmot that would frequent her backyard in El Salvador, often perched still except for its long tail swinging like a pendulum. But it wasn’t until more than a decade later, training as a biologist in Missouri, that she learned to identify birds by sight and song and surveyed them on islands along the Mississippi River. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, but enjoys annual journeys back home to the tropics, reuniting with the migratory birds seen only a few months earlier in the United States.
Smooth rocks mottled the white froth of the rapids. As I approached the river’s shore, the sound of water rushing past was overwhelming. When you look at a river as violent as this one, you don’t imagine it to be a place where a bird might thrive. Torrent Ducks (Merganetta armata), an Andean endemic from South America, are one of only four duck species in the world specialized for living in these cold, fast-flowing rivers.
On eBird, I had looked up possible rivers where Torrent Ducks might be found before visiting the Intag Valley in Ecuador, a remote, cloud forest region that is underbirded compared to nearby birding hotspots like Mindo. Though recorded yearly around the area, Torrent Duck reports were few and far between. After a week of searching along mountain rivers, I thought I might not get to see them on this trip.
The Torrent Ducks appeared unexpectedly while we were having lunch at a local hot spring overlooking the Intag River. The day was too hot for hot springs. So, we lazily slumped in plastic chairs, occasionally batted at flies, and lifted our binoculars to a charming pair of Black Phoebes feeding their young. Then, a bicolored head: orange below and blue above, bobbed quickly downriver. There was an excited commotion, and we ran closer to the edge with binoculars in hand and cameras dangling haphazardly from one arm. The slender female Torrent Duck swam past us, and in a couple of quick jumps, lifted herself from the water onto a large smooth boulder, where she stood still for a few seconds before diving back into the violent waters and disappearing.
Torrent ducks can stay underwater for up to 20 seconds while they pick aquatic insect larvae from submerged rock crevices. They have flexible, slender bills specialized for this task. Usually spotted in pairs or family groups, it wasn’t long before we saw the male, displaying a crisp black-and-white head pattern and swimming effortlessly against the current.
Notoriously shy, and because of their extreme environment, Torrent Ducks are difficult to study. Baseline information about their breeding biology, population abundance, and distribution is still needed. We know they’re declining in parts of their range. These ducks depend on clean, high-quality water, and face numerous threats, including hydroelectric dams that alter water levels and silt runoff from development that can choke out the aquatic insects they feed on.
Like other unique bird species that specialize in torrential mountain rivers, the White-capped Dipper (an aquatic songbird) and the Torrent Tyrannulet (a small flycatcher), this trifecta of birds serves as a sentinel of habitat quality. If these birds are around, the waters are healthy.
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