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| Common Eider seen on the Sanibel Causeway Photo courtesy of Bob Pelkey |
Our little corner of Florida is an excellent place for birding. We have the sea shore, swamps, marshes and woodland environments. Sometimes we get that special uncommon or rare bird sighting. Last spring we a nice Eurasian Widgeon spend several weeks on a small pond in Cape Coral. We could add the Razerbill invasion last winter as well.
Currently a young female Common Eider (284) has settled-in along the Sanibel Causeway. This is very unusual to have these ducks so far south of their normal wintering zone. So Bob Pelkey and I headed over yesterday and succeeded in locating her just before dusk. A Lifer for both of us and for many other observers.
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| Bob hard at work observing the eider |
It was indeed awesome to get a view of this rare species to our area. The sunlight would have been preferred to last more than the few minutes it did for photography of the bird. One or two were taken under ideal circumstances for the blog. I especially liked the character of the eider which did everything but sleep. A very rewarding bird to be seen. While White-winged Scoter has most recently been reported at this area, I am going to corroborate with Vince McGrath's observation of Black Scoter on 17 December as the bird I commented to you about personally seen earlier on the 20th. That was a very difficult bird to photograph in three feet of water and waves.
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