[mou] More Rice County Scoters

[Dave Bartkey]

Hi everyone!
  Today, Troy Flicek and I had all three species of scoter on our lakes! We first viewed 3 White-winged Scoters on the north side of
Lake Mazaska. The second was a single Black Scoter on the south side of French Lake. Probably the same bird Forest Strnad and I had
seen last Sunday. Then at 2 o'clock, as Troy was dropping me off at my truck at the public access on the south side of Lake Mazaska,
I joked that it would be nice to see a Surf Scoter here before we call it a day so we could say we've seen all three in one day, and
sure enough! There was a single Surf Scoter just to the right of the landing. At first we thought it was a Coot, because there were
lots of those straight out from us, but then it dove under for about 10-20 seconds. At that time we got out our scopes! We had very
good looks at all of the scoters today. I'm not sure if all three scoter species have been seen in Rice county in one day...

  Other highlights included 1 Rough-legged Hawk, 1 Double-crested Cormorant, at least 20 Wild Turkeys, 1 American Kestrel, and a
flock of 30+ Mourning Doves. Troy had also seen a Northern Shrike on his way to meet me this morning. He had told me it was the
sixth one he's seen this fall/winter down here.

  Also seen were Hooded Mergansers, Canvasbacks, Redheads, Scaup, Bufflehead, and one very distant Loon.

  Quite an amazing day!

Good birding!
Dave Bartkey
Faribault,MN
cerulean66@charter.net