{"id":8680,"date":"2020-02-01T10:00:08","date_gmt":"2020-02-01T18:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryeifert.com\/?page_id=8680"},"modified":"2023-09-17T08:22:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T15:22:57","slug":"2019-02","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/published-writings-and-art\/salish-sea-stories-48-north-magazine\/2019-02\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 \u2013 11 White-winged Scoter"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/published-writings-and-art\/salish-sea-stories-48-north-magazine\/2019-02\/2019-11-white-winged-scoter-2\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/2019-11-White-winged-Scoter.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-11881\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>With eye swoosh that reminds one of Amy Winehouse, white-winged scoters are large and mostly black sea ducks. The white-winged scoter, pronounced sc\u2018<em>oh\u2019<\/em>ter, is the largest of the three that are here during the cold months. The white feathers near the male\u2019s eye and on the wing can be seen from a fair distance and make for good identifying marks. Unlike Amy, females are dull brown. These are winter birds for the Salish Sea, and these birds are here because they\u2019re shellfish-eaters. Scoters dive for clams, mussels, shrimp and snails and seem to favor deeper water than the other two scoter species. They typically dive into shellfish beds, tear off a mouthful and once back on the surface sort it out as to what\u2019s good or not. It honestly doesn\u2019t seem to matter, because their stomach juices can digest just about anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>White-winged scoters spend their summers in the far north like other sea ducks. They build a feather-lined nest on the ground close to water in colonies with many other scoter nests. They average 5 to 11 eggs. Everything\u2019s fine for the first few weeks of family life, but then all the nesting females start to act aggressively towards each other and chicks get mixed up. By the end of it all, some nests might have 40 offspring, others just a few. Careful what you wish for! To resolve this, after about 3 weeks the females just leave, abandon them all to fend for themselves \u2013 and off they go to the Pacific Coast to relax. I know, it\u2019s worth a human comparison, don\u2019t you think? By fall the birds arrive along the outer coast of Washington and some come by to see us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Larry Eifert paints and writes about the Pacific Northwest from Port Townsend. His large-scale murals can be seen in many national parks across America, and at larryeifert.com.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group has-medium-font-size is-nowrap is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-ad2f72ca wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With eye swoosh that reminds one of Amy Winehouse, white-winged scoters are large and mostly black sea ducks. The white-winged scoter, pronounced sc\u2018oh\u2019ter, is the largest of the three that are here during the cold months. The white feathers near the male\u2019s eye and on the wing can be seen from a fair distance and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/published-writings-and-art\/salish-sea-stories-48-north-magazine\/2019-02\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">2019 \u2013 11 White-winged Scoter<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11881,"parent":6453,"menu_order":30,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8680","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11882,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8680\/revisions\/11882"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/larryeifert.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}