Melanitta perspicillata
Order Anseriformes
Family Anatidae
Subfamily Anatinae
♂ Adult male.— Patch on forehead and one on hind neck white; rest of plumage black; bill showing much red, orange, and yellow; feet red or reddish-orange.
♀ Adult female.— Top of head black; spot behind eye and one in front of eye whitish; rest of plumage sooty-brown, paler below.
Immature.— Similar to female.
Nest, of reeds, built up out of the water.
Eggs, dull white.
The three Scoters, or Coot, as the gunners call them (see, however, American Coot), are migrants and winter visitants along the coast of New York and New England. In winter the greatest numbers are found south of Cape Cod, where the birds gather in enormous beds in the shoal waters about Nantucket and south of Long Island. The first migrants appear in September, and the last go north in May, but the birds are most abundant during October and April. All three species occur as more or less regular migrants on large inland ponds, — as at Dublin, N. H., — and in the valleys of the Connecticut and the Hudson, especially in the autumn. In summer a few barren birds linger along the coast, particularly in Maine.
Scoters feed over the shallows, even when the surf is breaking, diving till they reach the beds of shellfish, on which they feed. Early in the morning, or when changes in the wind or tide make them restless, they fly low over the water in large or small flocks; at other times they gather over the feeding-grounds, and dive and reappear steadily.
When on the wing, the following species, the White-winged Scoter, is readily distinguished from the other two, which show no white in the wing. Even when a flock is feeding, individuals frequently stand for a moment and shake themselves, their outspread wings at such a time often settling their identity. To distinguish the Surf Scoter from the American Scoter, it is necessary to make out the patch of white on the hind neck. With a good glass this can be seen, both when the ducks are flying and when they are feeding. The female and young Surf Scoters are brown, and have only indistinct white patches on the neck, and are difficult to tell at a distance from the female or young American Scoters, which are also brown. The latter, however, are rarer than the former. The White-winged Scoter shows the white wing-patch in all plumages.
Hoffmann – A Guide to the Birds of New England and Eastern New York (1904)