Black Scoter and Mole Crabs

Black Scoter and Mole Crabs

Text and photos (all copyrighted) by Tony Leukering

On the morning of 10 July, I found myself birding with friends on the beach at the South Cape May Meadows. I know, I know, the name of the site is the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge, a parcel owned by The Nature Conservancy. However, we old-timers who remember visiting the site when it was used as cattle pasture have a hard time calling it anything but 'The Meadows'. Along with Bob Fogg, I joined visiting birders Barbara Carlson and Paul Lehman for a toodle around The Meadows. When we got to the beach, we saw a scoter just beyond the surf line, quickly noting that it was an immature Black.



Black Scoters typically arrive in fall in late September (some a bit earlier) and the peak of fall migration for the species, at least here in Cape May, is in late October and early November. Variable numbers, 100s to 1000s, winter around the Cape and there is usually an obvious push of spring migrants February through April. A very small number can be found summering locally, and these birds are typically first-cycle individuals just around a year old.

The scoter worked through the breaking surf to the beach, in the process getting scooted along by a particularly aggressive wave. Once out of the water, it became the first of the more than two million scoters I have ogled in my life that I had ever seen walking.



The bird was even more obviously an immature male, with lots of orange on the bill, but still retaining a bit of the pale face pattern and white on the belly of a juvenile. Then it flapped, showing off its poor excuse for a set of flight feathers; ‘twas obviously in the process of its wing molt and was certainly flightless (as is the norm for molting waterfowl).



It began foraging on the wet beach and in the receding surf and Bob postulated that it was going after Mole Crabs (genus Emerita). It would 'sprint' somewhat in the manner of a Sanderling for a few paces or lie/swim in an inch of receding water.





When a wave would come in, rather than run away from it like a Sanderling, it would lower its head and face the wave, either while standing or lying down, and let the wave wash over it.



It appeared to be having some success, though most food items were too small to note and/or were swallowed immediately. I did get a picture of one of these smaller food items.



However, after a few minutes of this, the scoter hit the jackpot with a large Mole Crab.



With that sizable morsel in hand... er, bill, it swam out a bit into the surf and then swallowed it down. I last watched it heading back out to deeper water.