Elvis has NOT left the building! KING EIDER offshore from Oslo

This morning’s Maridalen outing was sans The Beast and avec Le Telescope. This did not result in any new birds though. In fact it was again disappointingly quiet in the Dale and it was pretty much same same as yesterday with Ring Ouzels and a Curlew the best birds although a male Wigeon on the lake was new for the year.

A lunchtime return to the Dale with The Beast and Mrs.OB resulted in a Kestrel (new for the year) and the sight of a pair of Canada Geese displaying and then mating which was (surprisingly) very interesting to watch and was going to be the subject of this blog post. That will have to wait though as the Bird Gods shone and the day ended up very well.

Just as we drew up in the drive way from home a message from Anders read that there was a second hand report that Elivs, aka The King, aka King Eider was just offshore at Fornebu. The excess baggage was quickly ejected from the car and I made haste to Fornebu. Pretty much exactly 10 minutes later I was walking down to the shoreline with scope and camera on each shoulder. A fisherman beckoned me over and pointed to a close rock where low and behold Elvis was in residence. It turned out that the fisherman was no birder, had no bins, but had a childhoold friend (Terje Kolaas) who he had been birding with years ago and who had instilled enough knowledge in him that he had recognised the bird as a King Eider. He then rang Terje who put the news out and just minutes later there I was! Ole (for that was his name) had told his fishing buddy that birders would quickly turn up but I think I beat his expectations! By the time I left 30 minutes later 8 other birders had turned up but I had expected even more given it was such a good bird.

Anyway, back to the bird. IT WAS FANTASTIC!! An adult male, summer plumaged King Eider at very close range. Initially sleeping on a rock it then decided to swim towards us with a couple of Common Eiders before eventually drifting further out on its own where it started diving for food.

Here it was resting on an offshore rock islet

male King Eider (praktærfugl) - birds don't get much better than this although older males of this species do get an ever bigger and more colourful bill knob

with Bygdøy, Dynafyr and Oslo in the background

quite cool marking on the chin and bill knob