FreeLists / va-bird / [va-bird] Re: identification of CBBT female eider

[BlkVulture@xxxxxxx]

Well, I'll tell you what I saw and why I thought it was a Common.  

Ned Brinkley and I looked at the bird late in the morning on Sunday, in great 
light as the bird was just off the jetty at the north end of Island One.  The 
first thing that grabbed both of us with just binoculars was the warm, rufous 
color of the bird, and heaviness of the bill.  With female Eiders, the rufous 
coloring is a pretty good indication of which species it is.  In a scope I 
was able to get a better look at the bill and head.  While I admittedly 
thought that the bill/head shape looked a bit more like King Eider, in the 
scope it was easy to see the long projection of the bill up the head to about 
if not past the eyes, and the large facial area to the sides of the bill.  
Also, once I got a decent look at the patterning on the flanks, it was 
apparent that the bird we saw didn't have the chevron shaped markings of a 
King Eider.  

This isn't to say that the bird reported Saturday was the same bird that Ned 
and I saw on Sunday.  It may have been, but without having seen the bird on 
Saturday, I can't say that it was.   

Cheers...

Todd

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Todd M. Day
Jeffersonton, VA
Culpeper County
BlkVulture@xxxxxxx
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