Stejneger's scoter

Voice

Of no practical use here: the birds are silent in Europe. On the breeding grounds the drake gives a soft whistle in display and the female a hoarse grating note, as in Velvet Scoter, but no described difference is usable in the field. Assume you will have to do the whole job on structure and pattern.

Identification

A large, heavy scoter the size of a Velvet Scoter, showing a white secondary panel in all plumages. Adult drake: velvet black with strikingly black flanks that barely contrast with the mantle, orange-red feet, and a bill that is pink-red to orange along the sides with a narrow yellow line along the cutting edge of the upper mandible. The knob at the bill base is tall and juts forward, so that head and bill form one long flat profile recalling a Common Eider. The white eye mark is large and runs back behind the eye as a tail. Female and immature: dark sooty brown with two pale cheek patches, and not separable in the field from the other members of the group.

Confusion species

Two opponents, and the wing helps against neither, since all three show a white secondary panel. Against Velvet Scoter: that species has a low bill base with no real knob and a concave, scooped bill profile, a broad yellow panel along the bill sides running well behind the nostril, and a small white hook below and behind the eye. Stejneger's has the tall forward-projecting knob, bill sides mostly red to orange with the yellow reduced to a line, and a larger eye mark with an obvious tail. Against White-winged Scoter: that species has a lower knob and a two-stepped head-and-bill profile with a bump above the nostril, more extensive yellow over the bill, and distinctly brown flanks contrasting with the black upperparts. Stejneger's has a taller knob, more red, and blackish flanks without that contrast. In Europe only adult drakes can be named with confidence, and even then it is best done from photographs of the bill in profile. Females and immatures stay on the books as Velvet, White-winged or Stejneger's Scoter without further comment, which is not carelessness but the state of the art.

Habitat

Shallow coastal seas over sand and shellfish banks, in Europe invariably inside a raft of Velvet Scoter and usually a few hundred metres to a couple of kilometres offshore. Breeds beside lakes and rivers in the Siberian taiga and tundra and winters in sheltered coastal waters in East Asia. Here it is a bird of the sea and nowhere else.

Range and movements

Breeds across northern Asia east of the Yenisey and winters south to Japan, Korea and China. European records come from France, Finland, Poland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Scotland. The best known is an adult drake off Gullane Point, Lothian, on 10 December 2022, accepted by the BBRC as the first for Britain; it stayed in the Firth of Forth until May 2023, moving between Lothian and Fife, and has returned in later years. It is not yet on the Dutch or the Spanish list.

Where and when to look

The Firth of Forth is for now the only realistic address in western Europe: Musselburgh, Gullane Point and Fife Ness, from December through May, with a scope from the sea wall. Work the Velvet Scoter rafts head by head and watch for one thing, a bird whose forehead runs forwards rather than upwards. Photograph anything odd and assess the bill profile at leisure afterwards, because the detail rarely survives the crossing at sea.

Conservation status

Assessed as not threatened, though the species has been recognised separately for so short a time that the figures still largely come from assessments of White-winged Scoter. The Siberian population is large but suspected to be declining. In the East Asian wintering areas gillnet bycatch, oil pollution and coastal development weigh heaviest; on the breeding lakes predation and disturbance play a part.