Elated to film Quinnie undersea! It was pure happenstance. The late day sun angled through the water, making for fantastic visibility. His highly contrasting feather patterning I think helped also to better capture her underwater. The long version is posted here and the shorter clip on Instagram and Facebook.

Notice how he moves rocks aside while foraging for prey. I think he was capturing baby fish, but I can’t really tell, even when the prey is splashing above the water. The biologists at the Seacoast Science Center in New Hampshire thought perhaps the fish may be baby flounder, but they only thought that from my description, not from seeing the clips.

It’s truly heartbreaking to learn that East Coast Harlequin numbers have declined from perhaps 10,000 birds in the 1800s to fewer than 1,000 currently. “This population is doing terribly and may be headed for oblivion,” says Jim Reichel, a zoologist with the Montana Natural Heritage Program. Before its prohibition in 1989, sport hunting was most likely the main mortality factor for eastern Harlequins. Now, oil spills and dams are the primary problems.