Arctic and Red-throated loons breed on small lakes, as do Sabine's Gulls and Arctic Terns. Most of the eggs have hatched by mid-July, and the majority of young birds are able to fly and are independent of their parents by the end of July. Waterfowl are the exception. Most young ducks and geese are unable to fly until sometime in August, although they must fledge before the onset of freeze-up. During molt, birds shed old feathers and replace them with new ones.
All birds molt at least once each year, and some two or three times.
Ducks, geese, swans, and some other groups of birds lose all of their flight feathers at once, rendering them flightless and vulnerable to predators. In addition, the molt is metabolically stressful owing to the demands for growing new feathers. Thus, in advance of this molt, waterfowl move to areas where food is abundant and they are safe from predation. For example, Old Squaw move to sheltered lagoons along the Beaufort Sea coast. There they feed in the protected waters and rest on the beaches of the islands that usually are free of mammalian predators, such as foxes.