The females of all the Scoters are a dingy brownish color, but show the characteristic marking of the species, although the white is generally dull or sometimes mottled.
Scoters or "Coots" as they are generally called are sea ducks whose plumage is almost wholly black; they have fantastically colored and shaped bills.
This species is the most abundant of the Scoters wintering off the New England coast, where they congregate in immense "rafts," floating off shore.
All the Scoters are better known to sportsmen as "coots," this species being the Butter-billed Coot, while the female is the Gray Coot.
All except the scotersare frequenters of the mountain lakes, fresh-water ponds and overflows.
The Long-tailed Duck is gregarious at this season, like most of its kind, although the flocks are seldom or never so large as the gatherings of Scoters and others.
The Velvet Scoters that visit our seas are generally observed mixed with the gatherings of the Common Scoter.
All the birds, however, do not pass northwards, for flocks of immature Scoters frequent British waters through the summer, whilst a few pairs of adults are even known to breed in the north of Scotland.
The three scoters on these two pages are sea ducks, wintering on open coastal waters.
Drakes can be distinguished from other scoters by two white patches on their head and the bright color of the bill.
Scoters feed on mollusks, crabs, and some fish and very little vegetation.
The three scoters may be met with fifty miles from land in loosely floating flocks of thousands.
This also holds good with regard to the west coast, where the scoters arrive in July.
None of thescoters breed in Britain, but nest in the great Northern marshes.
A few velvet scoters may always be seen among the immense flocks of the common kind.
In haunt and habit, as well as food, the common and velvet scoters are identical.
Other authors report that oil spills have reduced the number of scoters in the Baltic and off southeast England (Atkinson-Willes 1963).
Wintering flocks of oldsquaws and several species of scoters along the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington can be expected to dwindle as North Slope oil begins to be transported to Puget Sound ports.
Vast flocks of Scaups and Scoters hang about these northern waters; companies of Eiders and Long-tailed Ducks especially may be met with long distances from land.
Flocks of Scoters may occasionally be seen upon these waters all the summer through, and we have heard of Pink-footed Geese also apparently foregoing their usual summer journey to the north.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "scoters" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
