alis yoder
New member
I'm relatively new to birding, but have had the pleasure of upping my waterfowl game this last week from the Gulf Coast and up the Missouri River valley. I got some great looks at Lesser Scaups around the Kansas City airport (spent an hour watching a dozen from shore with 16x binocs).
A few hours later that day, I hit up a small lake a half mile from the Missouri river. There were four female scaups hanging out on the edge of the water with a group of Blue and Green winged Teal. In this group, three looked pretty firmly Lesser, but the fourth head shape did seem slightly more front heavy... but it could have just been my imagination, and were it only this feature, I'd leave it at Greater/Lesser. But this fourth did have a very clear pale patch on the cheek, and its white ring around the bill was also 50% more pronounced than the others. I haven't found much on these features, but a birder recently told me these were signs of Greater. It looked the same size as the other three. My binocs and the bird's movement didn't give me much help with bill size, nail, puffy cheeks. Apologies, new and poor, and don't have any means to take pictures.
Is this pale patch on cheek and pronounced white around the bill indicators of Greater?
A few hours later that day, I hit up a small lake a half mile from the Missouri river. There were four female scaups hanging out on the edge of the water with a group of Blue and Green winged Teal. In this group, three looked pretty firmly Lesser, but the fourth head shape did seem slightly more front heavy... but it could have just been my imagination, and were it only this feature, I'd leave it at Greater/Lesser. But this fourth did have a very clear pale patch on the cheek, and its white ring around the bill was also 50% more pronounced than the others. I haven't found much on these features, but a birder recently told me these were signs of Greater. It looked the same size as the other three. My binocs and the bird's movement didn't give me much help with bill size, nail, puffy cheeks. Apologies, new and poor, and don't have any means to take pictures.
Is this pale patch on cheek and pronounced white around the bill indicators of Greater?
