Un Eider à tête grise de premier hiver découvert dans le Calvados

The King Eider (Somateria spectabilis) is a large sea duck, which breeds along northern hemisphere arctic coasts of northeast Europe, North America and Asia. It winters further south in Eastern Canada and United-States, Northern Norway, and in the Bering Sea, where it can form large flocks on suitable coastal waters, This species is smaller than Common Eider.
The male is unmistakable with its black body, white breast and multicoloured head. The female is a brown bird, but can still be readily distinguished from all ducks except other eider species on size and structure. The head is shorter than in Common Eider, and the feathering extension onto the bill is rounded, not triangular in shape. Immature drakes are typically all dark with a white breast and a yellow bill patch. Eclipse adult drakes are similar but lack the white breast.
The species is very rare in France (7 data from 1980 to 2001), but the 12th of February 2008, James Jean Baptiste, who was counting Seaducks for the Groupe Ornithologique Normand, discovered an first-winter male off Villerville (Calvados, Normandy, France). The bird was still here the 21th of February.
In this article, we propose you a presentation of this mythic species, and a description of the bird found in Normandy.