Species: Melanitta fusca

White-winged Scoter

Species

Birds

Show on Lists

Puget Sound Partnership indicator species: birds

Salish Sea-reliant birds

Terrestrial vertebrates: birds

Encyclopedia of Puget Sound

Science Review:

9. Marine birds

Articles:

Marine and terrestrial bird indicators for Puget Sound

December 01, 2013

A December 2013 report identifies marine and terrestrial bird species for use as indicators within the Puget Sound Partnership's "Vital Signs" for ecosystem health.

Black Scoter (Melanitta nigra). Photo by Dave Menke, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Geographic and temporal variation in diet of wintering White-winged scoters

December 01, 2012

White-winged scoters (Melanitta fusca) are a species of sea duck that spend much of their time in northern marine environments. This paper investigates how dietary changes occur in response to changing availability of prey and the effect of those dietary changes on scoter condition and reproductive success, among other variables.

White-winged Scoter (Melanitta fusca). Image courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Marine birds

April 01, 2011

More than 70 bird species regularly utilize Puget Sound during some or all stages of their life histories, but only a portion of these are actively being investigated.

Brandt's cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus). Photo by Finley and Bohlman, courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Craniata

Class

Aves

Order

Anseriformes

Family

Anatidae

Genus

Melanitta

NatureServe

Source:
ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100120

Classification

Other Global Common Names

Negreta Ala Blanca - macreuse brune

Informal Taxonomy

Animals, Vertebrates - Birds - Waterfowl

Formal Taxonomy

Animalia - Craniata - Aves - Anseriformes - Anatidae - Melanitta - Regarded as two separate species by some authors: M. FUSCA, velvet scoter, and M. DEGLANDI, white-winged scoter, the latter also including the eastern Asiatic form M. STEJNEGERI (AOU 1998).

Ecology and Life History

Migration

false - false - true - Migrates northward from wintering grounds March-May; most arrive in breeding areas in Saskatchewan in early May. Begins migrating southward from breeding grounds August-November. Birds banded in summer in Saskatchewan were recovered on U.S. west coast, east coast, Gulf Coast, and Great Lakes. Males migrate to molting areas in early summer; these migrations poorly known.

Non-migrant

false

Locally Migrant

false

Food Comments

About 90% of adult diet is animal food; eats mollusks (especially blue mussel), crustaceans, some aquatic insects and fishes (Terres 1980). During summer also eats some plant food; pondweeds, bur reeds, etc. May forage to 12 m deep.

Reproduction Comments

Nests relatively late. In Saskatchewan (53 degrees north lat.), nest initiation peaks in early June; mean hatch date in late July (Brown and Fredrickson 1989). Clutch size is 5-17 (average about 10). Takes up to 18 days to lay clutch of 10 eggs. Incubation, by female (male departs), lasts 25-31 days. Precocial young are tended by female, fledge in 8-10 weeks. In southern breeding range in Canada, most young do not fledge until mid-September. Takes at least 2 years to mature (Kehoe 1994). Available information indicates a relatively high nest success rate but low rate of duckling survival (Kehoe 1994).

Length

Weight

1500

Conservation Status

NatureServe Global Status Rank

Global Status Last Reviewed

1996-11-21

Global Status Last Changed

1996-11-21

Other Status

LC - Least concern

Distribution

Conservation Status Map

Global Range

H - >2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles) - H - BREEDING: northern Eurasia; North America, from northern Alaska, northern Yukon, northwestern and southern Mackenzie, southern Keewatin, northern Manitoba, and northern Ontarion south through Alaska and most of western and central Canada; formerly nested in some western states adjacent to Canada; occurs in summer in areas farther east, possibly breeding (AOU 1983). NON-BREEDING: Eurasia; North America, along Pacific coast from Aleutians to northern Baja California, along Atlantic coast from Gulf of St. Lawrence to South Carolina, Great Lakes, casual in interior U.S. In the early 1990s, USFWS Winter Sea Duck Survey in eastern North America found the highest densities of scoters (all species) in Virginia, New York, Maine, and Massachusetts (descending order of abundance, Kehoe 1994).

Global Range Code

Global Range Description

>2,500,000 square km (greater than 1,000,000 square miles)

ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.100120