Right on the heels of a report of a female Common Eider by Nita Wynn at Tybee Island, Chatham Co., on 14 October 2006 during Georgia's Colonial Coast & Nature Festival, a female Common Eider was discovered on 17 October in Brunswick by visiting British birder,  Peter Kinnear.  The bird was not reported again until 27 October, when Cheryl and Panos Kanes observed the bird at the same Brunswick location.

The overall warm brown coloration and the relatively wide and round-tipped shape of the bill lobe (the area of the bill that extends up the forehead) denotes that it likely belongs to the S. m. dresseri subspecies, which breeds along the Canadian Atlantic coast south to the New England states and winters south to the mid-Atlantic states.

This particular bird was easily approachable as it intently foraged for invertebrates under the overhang of the marina docks...often passing right under foot!

Prior to the October 2006 sightings, there were four accepted records of Common Eiders occurring in Georgia.  Date and location specifics are detailed in the Annotated Checklist of Georgia Birds.

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