BARROW'S GOLDENEYE!!

While viewing our first ever Kent Co. Red-necked Grebe in rapidly fading light this evening, Curtis Dykstra and I were **blown away** to see a male Barrow's Goldeneye scoot into the same scope view as our grebe!! These birds are at Riverside Park at the south parking lot, located at Knapp and Monroe. This story is an epic one to be sure, but for lack of time at the moment, let me forego the story to address the ID issue which will be on people's minds. The goldeneye is not a hybrid or intergrade with Common, as evidenced by its facial crescent at least twice as tall as it is wide (markedly thin, even compared to some male BAGO I am familiar with in Montana where I lived for 4 years), coming to a sharp point above the eye. The scapulars consisted of half a dozen small, well-spaced spots. The black of the upperparts came down to the water's level at the side of the breast (the 'spur'). Here are the best photographs I could muster given the very poor light and heavy wind:
And here are the best videograbs I could get from my 5 videos I took (video mode way outperformed photo mode in the low light):




And finally, here is the best video clip I could muster. Blogger definitely downgrades the video quality, so I have also uploaded the video to Youtube here.