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 =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx ----------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================