A Wild Eider Chase!

New York, NY

Thursday 27 September 2018 72 °F

Today I woke up before 6am, rode five subways, two ubers, and walked/ran a total of 2.5 miles in order to find a prospective life bird, the Common Eider, a species of subarctic duck. They are fairly easy to find in the winter in this area but I prefer birding when it is warmer and I wanted to switch it up a bit today and bird before school. Note that this odyssey was entirely accomplished prior to classes at 11am!

When I arrived to Breezy Point along the coastline southeast of Brooklyn, I immediately spotted this OSPREY:

GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULLS such as this specimen were pleasantly abundant:

FORSTER’S TERN:

AMERICAN OYSTERCATCHER:

First-winter LAUGHING GULL:

It seemed like the walk through the sandy dunes and beach was taking forever, and I was on a time crunch. Now, I was starting to worry if I would even have time to walk all the way to the jetty for the Common Eider or not. It was certainly close!

Finally, at the base of the jetty a few cute SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPERS poked around:

Then, I spotted it — a large, dark, regal-looking diving duck — this was the female COMMON EIDER! My first life bird since moving to New York and my most recent life bird since the Cassia Crossbill!

I looked at the time, though, and had to leave after less than a minute of observation! Crazy fast twitching!

The uber ended up taking almost thirty minutes to arrive since it was such a remote corner of the city, and I observed a little flurry of bird activity while waiting for the car. NORTHERN FLICKER: