ML37581741

Age and sex

Adult Male - X

Observation details

Full adult male. Bird was clearly different from an American Black Scoter (Melanitta americana) by it's overall bill shape with the dark knob at the base of the top of the bill, the orange patch below the base of the bill that was surrounded by dark, and the much more obvious orange eyering (needed good looks to see this well, though). We had arrived shortly after 10 and many local birders were gathered already (around 15). The bird did flap it's wings a couple of times and, like our American Black Scoter, showed contrasting silvery remiges on the underside of the wings against black underwing coverts. Minutes after showing up we had the bird in the scope and had very nice views of it as it swam out to the southwestern corner of the boat basin and foraged right along the dock, seemingly picking either barnacles of mussels off of it. At one point the bird got up and flew out of the boat basin and into the main portion of the harbor. But, in less than 10 minutes time it flew back in to the basin and didn't leave the whole rest of the time we were present. When the bird did fly out and back in to the basin it was very interesting to hear the very distinct and clearly-heard whistle or trill the wings made in flight. After the first crowd was present and many had left Daryl, Jared, Greg, and Brad Elvert decided to get out onto dock C and get a bit closer to the bird. Here we spent over an hour watching it and photographing it at close range (often from only 50-20 ft. away) under mostly overcast conditions but did have some periods of partial sunlight, giving many lighting options for photography.

Technical information

Model

NIKON 1 V1

Lens

1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6

ISO

200

Focal length

21.9 mm

Flash

Flash did not fire

f-stop

f/5.0

Shutter speed

1/250 sec

Dimensions

2912 pixels x 1829 pixels

Original file size

2.44 MB