My July/August is worth forgetting, the world as a whole feels like it is spiraling down the drain and now that the election cycle is heating up, I can’t stomach any time on any lamestream news outlet. With that said, my November is turning out to be a marked improvement, at least on the personal endeavors front. Finally getting my legs back under me from the last ultra (link here). I expect a level of aftermath suffering, but holy cow did that one hit me hard. Already mentioned crushing the total annual miles goal on the 1st (link here) and now another milestone has been toppled. Let me introduce you to Miss 400.
Isn’t she a beauty? Hit the jump to find out what important position this little lady holds in my birding career.
I probably need to set the stage a bit here. If you recall, back in December 2021 we featured a famous bird from Chicago – specifically Monty, the endangered Piping Plover that had taken up residence on Montrose Beach. Producing offspring multiple years in a row, Monty and his mate Rose were the toast of Chi-Town. I am saddened to report Rose has gone missing and Monty passed away. This is a happy post, so let’s not dwell on that beyond letting you know one of their offspring showed up this year and hopefully will carry the torch forward (fingers crossed!). Monty represented number 300 on my North American Birding Life List.
Assuming you already figured it out, but today’s featured feathered friend is now the 400th check on the list. Nearly two years later I made it to the next level. With all the excitement, I had to rush home and get a celebratory post out – it is a true rarity here at Intrigued when you get a post less than three months old, much, much, much less the SAME day (although technically this might release the following day as I can’t figure out the timing on the multiple servers we use for our mothership and the wild side).
Guessing you are probably asking saying to yourself “Yada, yada, yada with the background crap, what the hell am I looking at!?!”. I hear ya, this fine specimen is a member of what I call the “One Wheel Scooter” family of Seaducks. Be honest, did you first wonder what a scooter has to with a waterfowl or was it “where is Bri at that he got a SEADUCK?”.
Let’s take the easy one first – if you take a wheel (‘o’) out of scooter you get Scoter. In this particular case, it is the “Black” variety. We have three Scoters that like to hang out in North America, this one, the Surf Scoter and the White-Winged variety. The latter has already been featured here on Intrigued (link here). Foreshadowing, the Surf is in the post queue, but I have never had the chance to get a Black before today.
How about we take a look at its range map courtesy of Cornell.
To be honest, that is pretty much the range map for the other two Scoters as well…at least on the North America front. You might find it surprising, but our little lady was photographed about an hour away from us in Bloomington, IL. For those not familiar with our broke state of Illinois (or the States for that matter) I outlined us in red – simply stick a pin right in the middle of that and you will likely hit Bloomington. That also happens to be the headquarters of State Farm Insurance (although they are moving a lot of their people out of state now). These shots were taken at a pond on their campus.
Your eyes do not deceive you – that is nowhere close to their range, but year after year, we get one or two that wander down to us. When that happens, we grab the camera and jump in the car. This time Ron met Linda and I down there and we both got this checked off our lists (jury is still out if this is a lifer for him, but it is definitely a +1 for this year). I wish I could have brought you the male as they are stunning to look at. They are jet black (surprise there ha), but they have a large bright orange/yellow knob at the base of their bill. Very easy to pick out of a crowd – the female, not so easy. They do have the very thick flattened out bill that helps. They are often confused with the female Ruddy Duck (link here) which have a similar coloring. The best way to distinguish between the two is to look at how the bill slopes into the head – if smooth, Ruddy. If it hits more directly into the middle of the head then think Scoter.
More subtle is the Scoter has more of a white patch on the side of the head that produces the darker cap like look. Ruddies are more of a consistent tan/light brown that continues on through the neck into the body. Scoters are also larger, but I try to avoid giving you characteristics that require a reference in the vicinity.
Will close with a few specifics on the Black Scoter. For our friends across the pond, up until 2009, the Common (Eurasian) Scoter and the Black were considered to be the same species. Good news is you get two checks now if you have them both. For courtship purposes, they’ll raise up out of the water and flap their wings followed by a downward thrust of the head. Cornell was unclear if that was just a male trait. You will see a similar raising in some of the shots above, but she would never flap while doing it. Maybe just clowning around for the paparazzi. Lastly, Cornell mentions that they will show up from time to time in lakes/ponds in late autumn due to being driven down by bad weather. It has been pretty nice here as of late, so this one is likely just taking the long route to its wintering grounds along the coasts.
Hope you enjoyed learning about our scooter, I mean Scoter. For the stats people out there, that is 400 on the life list and number 330 on the Average Year list (link here). That’s right, I’ve seen about 80% of my lifetime birds this year alone. If I take the last two Average Years and combine them, the count goes to 363 which is a stunning 91%. Translated…it has been a good last two years on the birding front.
Take it easy everyone, thanks for dropping in.
Life Intrigued 