Common scoter

Voice

One of the finest sounds of the coast: a melodious, far-carrying, slightly plaintive pyoo or kloo, delivered in chorus from a raft at sea. Heard above all on windless evenings and nights from March to May, and sometimes from parties migrating over the beach in darkness.

Identification

A compact scoter with a rounded head and a short bill swollen at the base. The drake is glossy black throughout with a yellow patch on the upper ridge of the bill behind the black knob, and dark feet. The female is dark brown with an evenly pale cheek and throat contrasting sharply with the dark cap. In flight the primaries gleam silvery from below, with no white showing.

Confusion species

Velvet Scoter is the only serious alternative: it shows a white secondary panel, is larger, more angular-headed and longer in the bill. On females the cheek pattern decides it, Common showing one evenly pale cheek against Velvet's two separate patches. Also keep vagrant Surf Scoter and its white nape patch in mind.

Habitat

Shallow coastal seas over sandbanks rich in shellfish, usually in huge tight rafts within a few kilometres of the shore. Moults in late summer in sheltered coastal waters. Breeds beside clear lakes and bog pools in tundra and birch zone and along Icelandic rivers.

Range and movements

Breeds in Iceland, Fennoscandia and northern Russia. The Dutch coastal zone is a key area, with large numbers moulting and wintering over the banks off the Wadden islands and the Holland coast. In Iberia birds winter off Galicia and the Cantabrian coast, with smaller numbers reaching the Gulf of Cádiz.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

Seawatch in October and November from the Holland or Zeeland coast in a hard north-westerly, during the first two hours after sunrise, when the skeins pass close inshore. In flat calm in January, take a high dune foot and comb the rafts with a scope for Velvet Scoter.

Conservation status

Not globally threatened, but the north-west European wintering population is under pressure. Shipping disturbance, shrimp and shellfish fisheries, offshore wind development and oil pollution all bear on the dense rafts the birds form. Food supply swings with the state of the shellfish banks.