Having been down to see the female King Eider twice, I'll pass along some
advice to those who may not have gone down yet (for what it's worth):
1) Look far--most of the time I spent looking for the bird, she was on
the north side of the channel. I even switched sides in December after
watching for an hour (of course, she switched sides at the same time).
Sunday she was feeding on and off with scoters. She did come within
about 50 yards of the South Jetty on Sunday, but moved rapidly with the
current.
2) Scope carefully--The bird does seem to hang out with surf scoters,
but not exclusively. Much of the time in December she was by herself.
The brown of this bird is distinctly different from female surf scoters,
but in poor light, this difference may not be as obvious. She has a
lighter face, but has no white spots as in scoters.
3) Don't be thrown by size--The queen really isn't a lot bigger than
male surf scoters, so looking for a substantially bigger duck would be
problematic.
4) Enjoy the other ducks--The oldsquaw pair Saturday night was
spectacular as were the Harleys (a male harley and two oldsquaw in the
same binocular field is as good as any bunch of eastern warblers. There are
many loons and grebes (including the enigmatic and
yet-unseen-by-this-observer Yellow-billed). If you don't find the eider
right away, enjoy the Marine Science Center trail (or an Oregon Maid
Chocolate Shake, found at the junction of 101 and 20).

It was fun to be with the group of birders Saturday and SUnday--if you
were one of those, thanks for the good time. RK
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray Korpi "A person is a person, no matter how small."
Hm: Portland, OR --Dr Seuss, "Horton Hears a Who"
Wk: Clark College
Vancouver, WA
rkorpi at clark.edu