Third Record of the King Eider in California
Third Record of the King Eider in California
I collected a juvenal female King Eider (Somateria spectabilis), now preserved as no. 1659 of my personal collection, at the mouth of Tomales Bay, Marin County, California, on December 16, 1933.
The bird was shot at 9:30 a.m. in the middle of the narrow channel which forms the entrance to Tomales Bay, about 200 yards east of Avalis Beach (see U. S. G. S. map, Point Reyes Quadrangle), at a point where the water is 45 feet deep. It was one of a group of three eiders which was found resting on the surface there. One of the other birds was either a juvenal or immature male and the third, a female of undetermined age. An hour later, I crippled but lost either the latter or another female eider as it flew along close to the shore a hundred yards north of Avalis Beach. This bird was hit hard by a charge of shot while it was flying about ten feet above the surface, whereupon it dropped to the water and dove immediately. It apparently swam so far under water that it was not seen when it finally came to the surface.
The specimen that was secured is mainly in the first plumage and is definitely a bird of the year. A small percentage of the flank feathers, most of the contour feathers of the back from the interscapular region to the rump, and the scapulars are of the succeeding plumage. This bird measured 550 millimeters in length and weighed 3 pounds 1 ounce; it was in rather lean condition with nearly empty stomach.There are but two published records for occurrences of Somderiu specta!dis in California. Henshaw (Bull. Nutt. Orn. Club, vol. 5, 1880, p. 189) recorded a young male from near Black Point, San Francisco Bay and Loomis (fide Grinnell, Bryant and Storer, Game Birds Calif., 1918, p. 193), a female from the Suisun Marshes, Solano County. Neither of these localities presents eider habitat and the birds were doubtless vagrants. The environment at Tomales Bay where my bird was taken is more characteristic of the species’ maritime winter habitat and the fact that three or more individuals were seen indicates that at least a small company of Icing Eiders had migrated far south of their normal winter range. Ornithological observations are so few off the California coast in midwinter that it is possible that this eider is a more regular visitant than the few records would indicate. Other observers should be on the lookout for this species. Judging from my experience with these birds, eiders are easy to recognize by one familiar with other ducks. While I had never before seen wild, live eiders, I instantly recognized these birds as such when I first saw them a hundred yards distant. Their carriage is quite distinctive and not at all scoter-like, as might be sopposed.
James Moffitt
1879 Broadway, San Francisco, September 19, 1940
