[TN-Bird] Douglas Lake Surf Scoters

Mon. 29 MAR 2004
Dutch Bottoms, Douglas Lake, Cocke Co., TN
D. Holt

     While viewing the six American White Pelicans at Dutch Bottoms, I was 
also observing a couple of flocks of Lesser Scaup when I noticed two noticeably 
different ducks that were nearby but independent of the flock.  A closer look 
revealed two Surf Scoters.  The male showed a white patch on the back of the 
head, and white and orange on the bill.  The female was dark, and so far away 
that I could barely, if at all, make out any white on the head.  Their wedge 
shaped heads/bills and their rakishly held tails made them easy to discern from 
the scaups.  They were on the far side of the lake just downstream of the two 
silos where the Ospreys are nesting, viewed from the pulloff near the 
intersection of Rankin Hill Rd. and Hwy 25E.   I observed them for about a half 
hour 
through a Meade ETX125 at powers from about 60X to over 150X.
     The Lesser Scaups were in two flocks of 18 and 20.  There were dozens of 
Double-crested Cormorants in the vicinity, including several sharing 
driftwood perches with the American White Pelicans.

Don Holt
Johnson City, TN
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