In late January there was a rare duck squatting in Westerly for almost two months. He hangs out with a flock of common ducks: Common Eiders. But this is no common duck. He is a King Eider. I didn’t know what flock he’d abdicated from, only that he was a stranger in the Westerly bird court.
I had been chasing word about the King Eider for almost three weeks, frustrated by the people on e-bird who seemed to be in the same places I was at the same time, and who saw the bird when I did not.
But I wasn’t giving up.
The Common Eider flock regularly congregates at the end of the Weekpaug Breachway, and though the commoners were easily spotted, the King Eider continued to elude me. Turns out, you can’t see the King Eider from the car; I had to get out and take a walk. He wasn’t coming to me. I had to go to him. Honestly, the day I finally found him, I was about to turn around and leave. All I could spot was the flock. The ducks all looked the same to me. But I did spy another birder sitting on the rocks nearby, intently taking pictures. I let my eyes follow the direction of the camera and focused, really focused. And there he was. All hail the King Eider. Zen of Birding lesson for the day: If it looks like a Westerly duck and swims like a Westerly duck that doesn’t mean it’s a Westerly duck. It might be royalty. The mistake I made in my search for the King Eider was in looking for what made him different. Sometimes, I realize now, we are not meant to notice our differences, but our similarities. I’m not Westerly native, but I’m as close as I need to be.
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