King Eider, Lake Champlain, VT (and NY), November, 2017

Either Eider is a rarity in VT, so when a female Common Eider was reported in mid-November at the Champlain Bridge on Lake Champlain that really got my attention.  Then later in the day came additional posts that the bird was actually a King Eider.  And then a couple days later the news got even better - a pair of King Eiders, a female and young male, were spotted a short distance to the north from the DAR State Park in Addison.  King Eider is an exceptionally rare bird in Vermont, with sightings not surprisingly mostly coming from Lake Champlain.  There are only 5 records in eBird since 1990, with the most recent being birds seen at two different spots on the lake in 2006.  Given how rare this species is in this inland state, it sure would be great to chase after them.  But that’s more than 3 ½ hours from home which is beyond my normal driving distance, so I decided to pass on them.

As the days progressed, sightings of the Eiders continued both on the listserve and eBird- they were sticking around!  And with each additional post I got more and more interested in trying for them.  Then finally I decided to make the run up there, opting to get a rental car (using one of my free days), rather than putting all those miles on my car.  Now I needed to do some research to get the micro-directions.  All the recent sightings were similar – the pair of Eiders were sticking closely together, and they were most often associating with a flock of about 30 Long-tailed Ducks.  (Those are rare birds for VT as well, though not nearly as rare as the Eiders.)  Seemed easy enough – look for the Long-tailed Ducks and you would find the Eiders, right?  One challenge was the reports from the day before my trip said the Eiders were way out on the lake, maybe in NY waters.  As a result I was less worried about finding my target birds than I was in finding them in VT (I already have King Eider for my NY list).

The day of my trip finally arrived and the weather was quite good – not too cold and only light breezes from the south.  That should make for good viewing conditions even if the birds were far out on the lake.  I arrived at the closed gate to DAR (the park is closed this time of year), parked on the shoulder, and started the short walk to the lake.  Although there was another person in the park, he wasn’t a birder, so I was on my own.  I set up my scope and casually scanned the lake but could only find a small flock of Mallards.  I scanned 2 or 3 more times, each time looking more closely than the previous search, but still came up empty. 

My vantage point next to a picnic shelter a short distance above the lake gave me a great view of most of the lake, but I couldn’t see too far to the north.  I remembered passing a sign for a trail to the shore, so I decided to take that trail to see if it gave me a different viewing angle.  The trail ended right at the shoreline, and it gave me views directly west and most importantly to the north, so I was hopeful I would find my targets.  Though now down low to the lake meant I had to deal with some heat shimmer.  But despite my different viewing angle, my scans again were not only negative for the Eiders, but I found no waterfowl at all.  Then finally on the next scan I thought I noticed tiny white dots far out on the water.  I concentrated on this area and eventually realized these were the reported flock of Long-tailed Ducks – so the Eiders couldn’t be far away.  After a couple more anxious minutes of peering across the lake I finally noticed a couple larger brown ducks close to the Long-tails.  They were really far away, but eventually I got some details on the birds, including the orange bill of the young male, and confirmed they were indeed the King Eiders.  Amazing that they were still around more than 2 weeks after first being seen off DAR.  Success, but - they were so far out that I thought that they were in NY and not VT. 

The birds were slowly making their way to the south which should make them visible from my original viewing spot.  And from that higher vantage point I would have less heat shimmer to deal with so maybe that was now the better vantage point.  So I headed back to the first spot and eventually re-found the Eiders.  Viewing was indeed better from here, and the Eiders were not only swimming south, but also a bit to the east.  Three other birders arrived, and I was able to get them on the birds, though the extreme distance made it difficult.  Over the next 30 minutes the birds continued to move a bit south and east, and all of us agreed the Eiders were eventually in VT waters, though still pretty far out.  I could finally check King Eider off my VT list.  But perhaps the crowning moment of my visit was when a group of high school students arrived on a science field trip and we were able to get all of them on the birds.  Even though they likely didn’t appreciate how rare these birds were, their reactions when they finally spotted the birds in the scopes were priceless.

King Eider was #281 for my VT list, and the 247th species I’ve seen in each of the 6 New England states.  I’ve also seen this species in 5 other northeast states as well as in AK (see my statebird map below).

As a postscript, I and the other birders at DAR that morning started to theorize about why the Eiders had stayed in this area so long.  And also why such a large flock of rare Long-tailed Ducks were in the area as well.  The local birders suggested that this spot must be a good feeding area for Zebra Mussels.  Perhaps this is also why a large flock of diving ducks typically congregates here most winters as freeze-up approaches.  So the Zebra Mussels may be an unfortunate invader to Lake Champlain, but at least they attract some good diving ducks to the state.