Friday, November 6, 2009

Common Eiders

A few of us were discussing last night how Common Eiders have become, well, common. Along those lines, Pat Sutton sent me the following note: "Passing along that Clay & I enjoyed 31 Common Eiders today, November 5, CLOSE ... practically in the surf, at about 3 pm near the St. Mary's Jetty in Cape May Point. Simply lovely!"

I hypothesize that two factors contributing to the NJ eider increase are the maturing of the sea life on and around the many rocky jetties, and perhaps something cultural - eiders are long lived birds, and as more learn they can winter this far south successfully, they keep coming back.

No comments: