Rare King Eider at Rose Valley Lake
12/11/16
By David Brown
“With everything at Montour Preserve today, Rose Valley Lake seems like a good call.” I had to agree with my brother Bobby. A nice variety of ducks had been reported at the preserve so heading up to the lake the next morning would give us a chance at finding some rare waterfowl.
I picked him up and we got to the South boat launch of the lake around 9am. A few minutes later our friend Steve arrived. We scanned the lake and spotted a few common species: lesser scaup, horned grebe, ruddy duck.
We drove to the south causeway and saw the eastern phoebe that I had found a few days earlier. Phoebes are common in the summer but it is unusual for one to stick around into December. It was a nice sighting by not the rarity we were hoping for so we continued around the lake.
We stopped at the east boat launch and Bobby spotted a large duck floating in the middle of the lake. Even with a spotting scope it was too far to make out many details. He suggested it could be an eider and I shrugged off that idea but suggested that we hurry around the lake to a closer vantage point. We followed a deer path through the brush to the edge of the water. Bobby got his scope on the bird while I took photos. It was a king eider! We have found a lot of rare birds in Lycoming County this year but this was one of the rarest and a first county record.
King Eider
The king eider is a large sea duck that nests in the Arctic. In winter small numbers are found along the Atlantic coast as far south as New Jersey. They are also found along the coast of Alaska. They are approximately the same size as mallards with a length of 22 inches and a wingspan of 35 inches. From the plumage we were able to determine that our bird was a first-year male.
In Pennsylvania most reports are from Lake Erie where one is spotted every few years, but I could only find 3 records from the rest of the state.
King Eider in flight
Finding a rare bird comes with a lot of responsibility. King eider is on the Pennsylvania state review list which means that all sightings should be properly documented and a report submitted to the Pennsylvania Ornithological Records Committee. Duck hunting season had ended so we could openly report the bird. That involved texting and calling friends, emailing local and state listservs, posting to local, state, and national Facebook groups, and texting the rare bird text group. For each of those we had to give enough information for others to be able to find the bird, especially for a rarity like this where someone may travel from hours away to see it. Trying to do all that with cold hands on a cell phone while keeping an eye on the bird can be quite chaotic.
King Eider in flight
Over the next 4 hours birders arrived to see the eider from as far away as State College. At one point it took flight and gained some altitude then circled around and landed back on the lake. Twenty minutes later it took off again and we watched as it flew out of sight towards the Atlantic Ocean.
