[obol] Eider update

[Alan Contreras]

I'm just back from Portland 10:30 p.m. Sat after dropping off Cole Wild from
Colorado, a visiting birder who first saw the STELLER'S EIDER.  I reported
this as a female but we now think it is a young male because it has a
somewhat pale face (especially around eye) and the breast is paler than the
rest of the bird, though not by much.

This bird has a distinctive appearance in the field.  It is brown all over,
but a slightly warmer, golder brown than the scoters.  Nowhere near as
bright as the female Kings that we have had around in recent years, it's
pretty dark and dull. It is smaller than the White-winged Scoters it was
near, more harlequin-sized.  It shows a whitish bar, possibly two with one
more obvious, toward the rear about where the speculum would be on a folded
wing.  The bill seems oddly matched to the bird, a fairly large, gray,
rather scaup-like bill, quite wide, stuck on a head that seems one size too
small for the bill, not quite as outsize as a Ruddy but noticeable. From the
front, sort of platypussy.

It tended to swim with its neck stretched up, with the head tilted slightly
up at the bill end a la Red-throated Loon. This made it look unlike anything
else on the water, even at a great distance. Every now and then it would
throw its head back like it was swallowing something, kind of like a
Goldeneye display but not as extreme.  I have not yet looked into whether
this is a trait of the species or it was just swallowing.

It stayed fairly far out beyond all white water, swimming slowly southward
in no great hurry.  It passed right by some scoters, ignored them and went
right on about its solitary business.

Please post any relocations as soon as possible.  We obtained no photos.

-- 
Alan Contreras
EUGENE, OREGON
acontrer at mindspring.com