Like the other eiders, this species is most common during the winter months with a few lingering individuals being found during spring in most years. The majority of individuals have left by May, though birds do linger into mid-May on a regular basis but are typically gone before the 25th of that month. It is almost completely absent as a summer visitor with just a few records from June to August (these often refer to injured individuals). Fall migration is not well known as it does not seem to reach the Pribilofs by mid-October regularly with the earliest regular records being from the first week of November and numbers peaking in January-March.
