That man Stejneger again

Not content with having a Stonechat named after him Leonhard Stejneger, the man with unpronounceable name, has a Scoter named after him! Universally shortened to Stej.  Long on the radar as a 1st for Britain after one turned up in Ireland a few years ago and a few others in Europe, one turned up on the east coast just before Christmas. At the time we had a family crisis in Australia and with my wife having to make a sudden journey to be by our daughters hospital bedside I didn't feel the inclination to travel for it. 

I thought the opportunity had been missed but it, or another, turned up at Lower Largo a fe miles north of Edinburgh. To act as an extra incentive there was also a White-winged Scoter present to add to the mix. I'd seen White-winged Scoter in 2011 - see here.

After an early morning start Friday doing a breeding bird survey I wasn't inclined to travel far on the Saturday. Sunday morning, the 30th April,  dawned and we joined friends for a cooked breakfast at our local cafe, before Mrs W went to play in a golf competition. My phone was constantly pinging with updates of the bird and it appeared the bird was showing reasonably well with s nice calm sea.

A conversation with Mark P swayed me into going that day and by 11.00 we were on our way in atrocious weather. Luckily the forecast was for clearer weather as we arrived at Lower Largo and parked up.

Even luckier Dan Pointon was already there on site and had got his eye in and we were soon watching both  'the Stej' and White-winged Scoter together in a flock of at least 800 Velvet Scoter. Once we got our eyes in the distinctive bill shapes were quite readily picked out with the White-winged (deglandi) having visibly browner flanks. Both species have a more pronounced 'tear drop' around the eye than Velvet Scoter but this was surprisingly hard to pick out given that it started raining again and a bit of a sea mist started rolling in.

I didn't manage any photos but luckily Neill Hunt has let me use his digiscoped photos below that clearly show the distinctive bill shape of Stejnegers Scoter

Stejneger Scoter by Neill Hunt 

Deciding we weren't going to get much better views and knowing we had a long drive ahead we left and arrived home just before 10 pm