Late afternoon and one of those spur of the moment stops. We’d left our Tadoussac campsite early, to look for a king eider that had been reported as being close in by the dock at Les Bergeronnes. No luck. We saw plenty of eider but no king. We drove on, stopping at Longue-Rive (nothing of note but two heron) and then again at Portneuf (more eider, as we expected but otherwise gulls).

We pressed on for our campsite at Baie-Comeau but the bay at Ragueneau looked interesting.

Parked up, we walked past the fairground dinosaurs (no real explanation as to quite why here) almost to the edge of the water. There was a raft of eider duck out in the bay, being shadowed by three great black backed gulls. The raft was close bunched up (unusual for eiders) but as they came alongside the rocks opposite, the raft split, males one way and females a little further along. And among the males a king eider. Not what we were expecting and a real surprise. We’d travelled some 90km along the North Shore, and here one was.

As we watched, the raft set out towards the bay, still close set. And we suddenly realised why – eider chicks being shepherded closely. And then a bald eagle fast and low over the water from the right. The raft dived, and as it did, lost that close knit protection. The eagle turned, came in again, talons out. The eider dived, surfacing even more spread out. Once more the eagle wheeled round, eider diving again, and at that moment half a dozen great black backs dropped into the melee. In a flurry of spray the ducklings were all taken. The eagle left with nothing. It had had to stay in the air. But black backs can land on water and did – and as the chicks bobbed up, as they had to, they were swallowed whole.

And we watched and marvelled and our excitement at seeing that king eider – rare in this part of the St Lawrence – was tempered by reality.