Hi everybody, Friday mornings, I have been doing for a beach walk on the south end of Jekyll. The last couple of Fridays, I've gone to the north end and taken a quick look at the ducks. Well, today I was up there enjoying the Black Scoters, when I pick out a duck in the surf. This duck was warm brown on the head and neck going to a rusty brown on the body. The overall appearance was that of an eider. The head was blockier than that of a Common Eider. The feathers seemed to cover more in front of the eye. This made the dark bill appear stubby. There was a partial pale eye ring over the top of the eye then the pale line went from behind the eye down along the side of the neck. The neck was short the body blocky. It was swimming in the surf, a couple of time it would raise out the water and flap its wing and the white (pale) underwings were there. King Eider female! Wow! turned to high five someone and there was no one there. Just me....alone! The surf fisherman didn't count. The bird swam right by him. He was fishing. By this time, I had been watching this bird for about 15 minutes. During this time I was making a couple of quick sketches of it, trying to talk myself out of it, going thought all the possible common ducks. Common Eider just didn't quite fit. I had to go to the south end to check to see if any one came to go on my walk. No one was there so I drove around to the Coastal Encounters Center (the old Ski Rixen area) to see if I could get someone to go with me. No one there. So I just went back prepare to get the best documentation that I could. The trouble was that, where the duck had been in the surf, there were kids- lots of kids, they were all learning about the beach. But there was no Eider. I spent an hour or more looking no luck. I got home; called a few people. I got Lorraine Dusenbury. Now she just call me to confirm. She saw the Eider around 1:15 pm. She watched it for about 20-25 minutes before it disappeared. Mike is going out tomorrow to try. I'm going to try to stop on my way to Folkston. Wish us luck. Lydia

Lydia C. Thompson St. Simons Is. Ga 31522 artworksbylydia@thebest.net