Sunday 19 January 2014

King Eider!

I made a road trip to Ottawa this weekend to see a Senators game and made a detour to see a rare bird, dragging my two travelling friends (Alex and Matt) along with me.

I had heard reports of as many as 3 King Eiders near the Burlington lift bridge canal and was hoping that I might be able to see some.  This species breeds in the high Canadian Arctic and normally winters in the ocean off both the east and west coast.

After scanning through the abundant common waterfowl which included long-tailed duck, greater scaup, common goldeneye, red-breasted merganser, white-winged scoter, bufflehead and redheads I spotted 2 immature/female type King Eiders swimming together further down the canal!

We took the scope down a bit closer and I even managed to get a few shots of one.  Not sure where the other one took off to...























Swimming beside a white-winged scoter and a long-tailed duck.

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