White-winged Scoter

Early this afternoon a birding friend of mine, Paul, called me to tell me that a White-winged Scoter was seen near Yankton, SD in Nebraska which is only about 1 and 1/2 hours from my home. There is a large lake there formed by a dam which draws in a number of water birds but for some reason the scoter decided to go to a sewage lagoon near there instead. This scoter, which would be a life bird, would also be the last scoter I needed on my life list. I have seen one Black and several Surf Scoters before but no White-wings.

We drove up to see it and when we got to the lagoon we immediately found the scoter swimming around with a gorgeous adult male Redhead. The scoter was life bird 341 for me and it was a new state bird for my friend. This is not the first time I have seen good birds on sewage lagoons. I have seen Barrow's Goldeneye (self found, accidental in Iowa), Snowy Plover, Piping Plover, Least Tern, Ruddy Turnstone and much more at a couple local lagoons by where I live in western Iowa. The lagoons may stink (luckily the one near Yankton didn't) but the birds that you find in them sure don't!

A couple other birds were seen while we were up there including three Western Grebe, some Cackling Geese, and a Bonaparte's Gull.

Black Scoter and more...

Today at noon I went online and read that a Lesser Back-backed Gull and a Black Scoter were at a dam near Yankton, SD just a couple hours before the post came out. Both of these species would be life birds for me so after talking to my mom she decided to drive me up there. We packed up and were on the road in about ten minutes. About an hour and a half later we were at the dam. I began scoping the half-frozen lake for the gull with no success. Many Ring-billed and Herring Gulls were out on the ice, but no black-backed. I saw some waterfowl above the dam such as Common Goldeneye and Common Merganser as well as a young Bald Eagle that was trying to make a meal out of one of them. After a long time of searching I went below the dam to look. We came across another birder who had no luck of seeing the gull either. We decided to look along the river for the scoter since it looked like the gull wasn't going to be found. A few moments later the other birder came back and told us that he had found the Black Scoter. My mom and I went to where he said it was and found it right away. Since the bird appeared to be closer to the other side we went over there and got some photos of it. We went home satisfied, even though the gull eluded us.