White-winged Scoter – off Murcar Links Golf Course, Blackdog, Aberdeenshire, 30^th June 2016

White-winged Scoter, off Murcar, Aberdeenshire, June 2016, attempting to illustrate the subtleties of i.d., especially when asleep on a lumpy sea!

Having bided my time (given it was found on Saturday the 25th June 2016) I banged in the 'deglandi' (er, that is, saw the (American) White-winged Scoter.....) the following Thursday.

I had bided my time as I had various commitments at the weekend and earlier in the week, but also as I was conveniently working on the Moray Reinforcement Pipeline Project in Aberdeenshire and was travelling there on Wednesday the 29th June, so it had seemed best to wait.

So, as it would have been rude not to, as was commented whilst I was there, I went after work on Thursday the 30th June.

I was increasingly hacked off at work, so I gradually hatched my plan, and left at around about 16:00 hours.

I travelled cross-country, avoiding the rush-hour A96 and A90 / Aberdeen by-pass and reasonably successfully navigating my way to the A90 north of Aberdeen. I struggled to decide whether I needed to take the A90 further north or south towards Aberdeen. Eventually I opted for the latter, and then misguidedly turned off into Blackdog. Here I consulted my mobile and realised I needed to continue further towards Aberdeen to find the Murcar Links Golf Course road. This I successfully did, and once there I parked up and assembled my gear and marched off north along the track through the Murcar golf course, as the RBA App suggested.

All a bit too literally though. I continued north, rather than diverted east as I realised I should have done on the way back. Eventually this track allowed me just to cross (carefully and respectably) one hole of the golf course to the sand-dunes, from where I had a good view out over a further sand-dune ridge, and the nearby North Sea. And lots of distant scoter, etc..

The trouble was, between the sand-dunes I was on, and the next ridge of sand-dunes was an intervening valley with a burn and dense reed-bed to traverse.

I continued north along the dunes, and then clambered down and along the steep eroding face of these dunes to the burn which I eventually crossed close to the point at which it reached the beach. Then I returned south across the beach and then onto and along the seaward sand-dune ridge. Once opposite the huge rafts of scoter I selected a suitable viewing point and erected my tripod and mounted my telescope, and scanned and scanned and scanned.

Initially this produced good views of huge numbers of Common Scoter, plus a range of other ducks, etc.. Eventually, as I got my eye in, and realised that the Velvet Scoter were mainly in small groups which tended to be further out. It was very hard work given the huge numbers of scoters Murcar in June / July involves and the range the flocks were at, and the sea state. And a jogger running along the beach helped not, as he flushed large numbers of birds, including many of the scoters........ .

I tried very hard but failed. I had seen no one (apart from golfers) nearby so as I contemplated what to do and opted to move further south along the sand-dunes and view from there (or leave!) I was somewhat surprised to find an update suggested the object of my quest was ‘still there’ at 18:00. Eh?

I was flummoxed. It was now c.19:00 and I had been there for at least an hour (and much more perhaps) and had seen no one.

I made my way south along the dune ridge and in doing so suddenly happened upon (to use a quaint expression) a couple, familiar from Fair Isle, who were grilling the flock from a point some few hundred metres south of where I had been.

What’s more, they had it, or at least, had had it.... .

But the fact that they had had it was fantastic news, which gave me renewed optimism.

Could he / we re-locate it? We gave it a good go, but struggled, and struggled really badly in my case. However, with commendable persistence he re-located it, and then managed to get me onto it. This was some achievement in both regards, and by me as well as him (though massive respect to him for his efforts!).

I slowly got my eye in on the bird in question, and once I had done it became somewhat easier to (lose and) re-locate the bird. Very often it was resting ‘with its head under its wing’ which made it all the harder to identify. Well, that is, until I realised that even when it was ‘at rest’ the exposed white wing patch was way more pronounced than it was on the few Velvet Scoters adopting the same pose.

So despite the birds’ un-cooperative behaviour (it was sleeping a lot of the time), etc., it was very rewarding eventually seeing the bird, and then, when the couple left, having it to myself and keeping on it, and then, finally, getting someone else who arrived later on it.

In addition to the highly distinctive wing flash when at rest, and despite the rolling sea and thronging mass of scoters, the views I obtained were good enough to see the pinky bill hues, the appropriately-shaped bill bump, the extensive white ‘lick’ back from the eye and nicely contrasting brown flanks, all of which enabled a useful (and reassuring) comparison with Velvet Scoter.

So ultimately, I was very happy, after a less than happy day at work.

And all the more so once I was back at my guest house in Huntly. Here I researched the status of White-winged Scoter. I belatedly realised that it now had full species status and that I had just had another tick!!!!

Subsequently, further audiences with White-winged Scoters in Shetland and Fife followed as birders got to grips with the i.d. of the split species (i.e., both White-winged and Stejneger’s).

White-winged Scoter, off Murcar, Aberdeenshire, June 2016 (photograph credited to Kris Gibb).