A male American White-winged Scoter in Brandon Bay was finally identified from digiscoped video taken over the past couple of days. Although the video quality is pretty poor, there is enough detail visible to be sure of the identity, and eliminate the similar Stejneger's Scoter. In particular, the head shape, with a blocky, rectangular head, and thick neck (when head was retracted, which was pretty much all the time) far more reminiscent of Surf Scoter than Velvet Scoter at first. The rather angular head looked quite different to the typical more rounded Velvet Scoter 'ski-slope' front head profile. The 'bump' on the forehead was also just discernible on video, and in life.
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American White-winged Scoter, Brandon Bay, 25th October 2023 (Michael O'Clery).
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In addition, the white patch behind the eye, in the telescope at least, had the distinctive 'uptick' shape, and in bright sunshine, the whole flank area was obviously a rich, dark chestnut colour, rather than the black of a male Velvet Scoter, or Stejneger's.
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| American White-winged Scoter, Brandon Bay, 25th October 2023 (Michael O'Clery). |
Sheer distance makes this bird a particularly difficult one to see. For anyone hoping to see it, best to avoid days with much swell or wind. The bird has consistently been seen offshore from Kilcummin beach in Brandon Bay - looking out to sea, left of the offshore islands - and from there, there are unfortunately no convenient sand dunes to get a bit of height to scan the sea, just an earth bank which only provides a couple of metres height. On days with swell, the scoter flocks are out of view for much of the time in the wave troughs. To add to the difficulty, there are now about 2000 Common Scoter to sort through (and a female or immature Surf Scoter). Another annoyance is the presence of windsurfers on any days with a good breeze, as their high speed antics can flush the scoter flocks and drive them further out. Nevertheless, as the last few days have shown, on the right day, the bird can be close enough to see reasonably well.
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| American White-winged Scoter, Brandon Bay, 25th October 2023 (Michael O'Clery). |
It is possible this bird has been present since 11th July, when I first suspected a White-winged Scoter might be with the 200 or so Common Scoter, but sheer distance then precluded any chance of a successful identification. I saw the 'white-winged' Velvet Scoter-type perhaps 6 or 7 times in the following month, but always at ridiculous ranges of 2km or more.
This is the first record for Kerry, and only the second for Ireland.
Many thanks to Eric Dempsey and Killian Mullarney for help with ID and helpful comments on the video clips.
(There is video available of the bird if anyone would like it, but the file size is close to 700Mb, in order to retain the detail from the original digi-scoped clips. If you's like to see it, send me your email to michaeloclery@gmail dot com and I'll send you a WeTransfer download link).
