This weekend's blog post was going to be all about year-listing and how it made you appreciate (or not in some cases) the commoner birds on the reserve. You'll have to wait until next week for that one though because we spent most of the afternoon looking at something that's definitely not a common thing to find on the reserve.
King Eider on the Ythan mouth this summer. Maybe the same bird..?
King Eider are bit of a local specialty for north East Scotland. They usually hang around in the cold seas around Norway, Siberia, Iceland and the Arctic Circle and are rarely seen any further south, but there's been one or two about in the north east for so long that it's become the logo of the local birders club. Anyone who regularly visits the Ythan near Newburgh or Burghead in Moray (or has been to twitch the Laughing Gull int he past few weeks) has probably bumped into one at some point. Getting King Eider on the reserve however has been a different matter.
We don't have much of a regular Eider flock, just small groups of birds bobbing about at sea, and the only King Eider in my time here was tantalisingly just off the reserve at Rattray Head. So when we got a call from Margaret, one of our regular visitors, to say that one was just at St Combs and moving south it was pretty easy for Andrew and myself to drop lunch, leap in the truck and head straight to the Seawatch point. Thankfully the groups of Eider weren't too far away and a quick scan across (picking up a Great Northern Diver while we were at it) found the King drifting just our side of the reserve boundary (on doubt at all about whether this one makes it on the year list!).
It's a handsome bird- slightly smaller than the common Eider which is a surprise for something called a 'King', but noticeably darker and blacker on the back with a misty grey-blue head. This drake doesn't have the massive yellow bill shield you can see in the photo but it's still very smart and fairly easy to pick out once you've found it.
This is probably the bird that's been at Rosehearty for the past week so it'll be worth keeping an eye on the sea for the next couple of days if you live south of us.