King Eider – male and spectacular!

1 April 2014 Hamilton Harbour ON.  I pay attention what birds are being seen around our area but rarely do I drop everything and go.  But this evening I happened upon a note that “a full blown adult male King Eider” had just shown up close to where I found the Pied-billed Grebe just five days ago.

I posted about a trio of King Eiders a few weeks ago, two females and a young male.  The thing is, those three were basically mottled brown; what birders yearn for is a male in breeding plumage, they are so absurdly spectacular.

So grabbing binoculars, camera and spare battery, and with the evening light failing, I made my way there as quickly as I could.  The bird was easy to find just a hundred yards or so offshore, Whether it will still be there in the morning remains to be seen, for as we looked across the water a tight flock of twenty or thirty scaup rose together, circled to gain height and headed away to the northwest.  The hundreds of thousands of bay ducks that crowded these waters just last week have diminished by perhaps 90%.  That avian Berlin Airlift I referred to is a very serious matter, it’s a dash to northern breeding grounds that cannot be delayed; the King Eider may well leave tonight.

. , and inasmuch as a picture is worth a thousand words, here it is.