Spectacled Eider

“Somateria fischeri. Spectacled Eider. Bill (in both sexes) peculiar in the extension upon it of dense velvety feathers which reach to a point on the culmen beyond the nostrils, thence sweeping past the nostrils obliquely downward and backward to the commissure, the nostrils opening just beneath the line of feathers. Feathers of chin extending in a point nearly as far as those on culmen. A peculiarly dense and puffy patch of velvety feathers about the eye, suggesting spectacles; frontal feathers erect, pious, in the male somewhat stiffened; occipital feathers lengthened into a crest; these characters of the head-feathering best marked in the male, but indicated also in the female. Nail of bill distinct. Adult male: General color grayish-black, the neck and most of the back white; lesser and median wing-coverts, the curved tertials, the lining of the wings and axillars, white; flanks white. On the head, the white of the neck gives way to rich sea-green, especially on the occipital crest; the frontal feathers are also tinged with greenish; but the ‘spectacles’ are pure silvery white, framed in black. Bill, in the dried state, dingy yellowish; feet the same, with dusky webs.” Elliot Coues, 1884

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