AVIS-IBIS

Birds of Indian Subcontinent

876. Somateria fischeri

876. Spectacled Eider.
SOMATERIA FISCHERI.
Somateria fischeri (Brandt), Mem. As. St. Petersb, v. pp. 6, 10, 14, pl. 1, figs. 1. 4 (1847) ; (Elliot). Ill. B. N. Am. pl. 47 ; (Tacz.), F. O. Sib. O. p. 1198 ; (Nelson), Rep. Nat. Hist. Coll. Alaska, p. 76, pl. v. fig. 1 ; (Salvadori), Cat. B. Br. Mus. xxvii. p. 422 ; (Ridgway), p. 198.
Male ad. (N.W. America). Space round the eye dull satiny white, bordered anteriorly and posteriorly by a vertical black line ; fore-head and lores covered with stiffened feathers, white anteriorly shading into olive-buff and then into greenish buff ; crown and occiput covered with a hood of stiff pendant light olive-green feathers ; quills, tail, and larger wing-coverts brown ; throat, neck, and upper parts with a patch on each side of the rump yellowish white ; rump and under parts dark smoky grey : bill orange ; legs dull olive-brown, but dull yellowish on the front of the tarsus ; iris milky white. Culmen 1.0, wing 10.0, tail 3.0, tarsus 1.7 inch. The female is barred with light fulvous and black, the abdomen plain greyish brown ; head and neck light greyish buff finely streaked with dusky except on the throat ; wings greyish brown, the greater coverts and secondaries indistinctly tipped with whitish ; bill dull blue ; legs and feet dull yellowish brown.
Hab. North Pacific ; the coast of Alaska from Norton Sound to Port Barrow on the American side of Bering Sea, and the Chukchi peninsula in 67° N. lat. on the Asiatic side.
In general habits it does not appear to differ from its allies. In the summer its food consists of small crustacea, grass seeds, and such other food as the brackish pools afford. Its nest is a. slight hollow in some dry grassy spot close to a pond on the marsh, well lined with grass ; and the eggs, 6 to 8 or 9 in number, are deposited about the middle of June, and are described by Mr. E. W. Nelson as being light olive-drab in colour, and small for the size of the bird, extremes measuring 2.82 by 1.81 and 2.60 by 1.87.
In August the male assumes a plumage much like that of the female, as do all the males of the Eiders.

BookTitle: 
A Manual Of Palaearctic Birds
Reference: 
Dresser, Henry Eeles. A Manual of Palaearctic Birds. Vol. 2. 1903.
Title in Book: 
876. Somateria fischeri
Book Author: 
H. E. Dresser
CatNo: 
876
Year: 
1903
Page No: 
633
Common name: 
Spectacled Eider
M_ID: 
527
M_CN: 
Spectacled Eider
M_SN: 
Somateria fischeri
Volume: 
Vol. 2
id: 
10846

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