entry smap 259

don't you just love it when you spot a bird you've never seen before and think maybe it's a special observation you had just accomplished but when you go to identify it you learn the name begins with Common... well that's how i felt when i spotted these Common Goldeneyes Bucephala clangula. though their range may spread across much of the northern hemisphere, i can assure you that in my area they are anything but common. so i was very happy to spot these in the middle of February along the Skagerrak coast of Norway. Presumably they had migrated from an inland lake that had frozen but they did not stay in my area for long.

regarding their naming, i would dispute how common they are but certainly not goldeneye. this is a male, basically black and white with a big bulging head and bright yellow eye. in the sun their heads are more a shiny dark green.

though they don't look particularly streamlined, they are in fact diving ducks. it's hard to imagine them swimming fast enough to catch fish. appropriately they stay mostly on lakes and feed on aquatic insects, of which there are not so many in the sea here. that may be the reason i have only seen them this one time. during migration they seek coastal areas so they eat whatever they can catch of crustaceans, molluscs or whatever. in the warmer part of the year, lakes without fish competing with their prey may be a good place to find them.

the female has a brown head and the tip of the bill is yellow. definitely not yellow lipstick. there may have been more on them in the general area but these two were the only ones i spotted. they were a good distance from land so luckily i had my Lumix FZ300 with a powerful zoom. there are limits to what a portable camera can do, so the photos are not exactly clear. nonetheless they are good enough for identification and documentation that these awesome Goldeneyes were here