By Ethan Forman
SWAMPSCOTT — Birders have been flocking to Swampscott, Lynn and Nahant this week to try and catch a glimpse of the shelduck, a bird common in Great Britain that seldom strays to this side of the pond.
"It's the bird of the moment," said Chris Leahy, a bird expert with Mass Audubon and a Gloucester resident who grew up in Marblehead. "This is a bird that is common in the Old World, in Europe and Asia." They are not native to North America.
"It's a very distinctive duck," Leahy said. He described its appearance as being halfway between a duck and a goose.
Leahy said the shelduck spotted in local waters is apparently a female, given the lack of a nub on its bill.
Spotting-scope-toting birders gathered in the vicinity of King's Beach on Tuesday afternoon hoping to catch a glimpse of the waterfowl, with its distinctive green head, red bill, white body and reddish band around its midsection that makes it look like it is wearing a sash.
Leahy said there have been just three recorded sightings of shelducks in Massachusetts, including this week's sighting, though a posting by Marshall Iliff on MassBird's Web site lists three prior sightings.
The first one was an immature female collected in 1921 at the mouth of the Essex River in Ipswich, Leahy said. The second one was at Squibnocket Pond on Martha's Vineyard in November 1964.
Bird experts agree that seeing a shelduck in Massachusetts is rare.
"Yes, there is a shelduck," said Jan Kruse, a spokeswoman for Mass Audubon. "It is a fairly rare visitor here."
"It's a European species, so it's certainly exciting," said Sue McGrath of Newburyport, the president of the Essex County Ornithological Club.
Interest is coming from serious birders who maintain "life lists," a journal of birds they have spotted over a lifetime, McGrath said.
"This is a bird they could add to their lists without traveling to Europe to see it," McGrath said.
It's also a chance to see an exotic bird blown thousands of miles off course.
There is a chance the bird could have escaped from a bird collection, making the sighting less rare.
"Obviously, the birders want the bird to be a wild bird," Leahy said. Those who have seen the bird's feet say they do not look like those of a shelduck that has led a pampered life.
Jim Malone of Nahant first spotted the odd duck Sunday at the far end of Short Beach by Little Nahant. It looked like an oystercatcher, but those birds prefer to wade into the water, and the bird he saw was paddling around.
"From 100 yards offshore, it stood out to me," Malone said. "It's such a striking bird."
Malone got some good looks at it, but he didn't have a camera. He went home and looked it up, but he could not find a mention of it in his guides until he found what was essentially a footnote describing the bird.
On Monday, word went out about the shelduck on MassBird's e-mail list (www.massbird.org) to mobilize birders.
That day, David Jones of Essex managed to photograph the bird among ducks and gulls at the outflow creek at the Lynn and Swampscott line.
Jones said in an e-mail that he spotted the shelduck at the border of Swampscott and Lynn, by the "Entering Swampscott" sign, after spending more than an hour searching around Little Nahant. Around 3:30 p.m., he was heading home when he came across a flock of American black ducks close to the sidewalk.
"I got out for a moment — didn't even bother to lock the car — and, wham, there was the shelduck," Jones said. He called in the sighting and was soon joined by other birders.
"It's been really fun," Malone said.
Staff writer Ethan Forman can be reached at 978-338-2673 or by e-mail at eforman@salemnews.com.
