Waterfowl -- Olbersdorfer See, Zittau, Germany (1 Viewer)

[Henry_Flower]

Can anyone help with some rather distant waterfowl, seen today?

Birds 1: I guessed black-necked grebe, based on the all-dark bill?



Bird 2: also dark bill, but the neck looks reddish.



Bird 3: at the back of a raft of tufties, so unfortunately I wasn't focusing on it. Possibly gadwall?

 

[aeshna5]

1 female Common Scoter
2 redhead Smew
3 female Pochard.

 

[Henry_Flower]

1 female Common Scoter
2 redhead Smew
3 female Pochard.

Thanks -- it's a learning moment when one's guesses are completely wrong!

 

[TheBlackGrouse]

It's really surprising for me that Common Scoters are this far inland, on that small pond, close to a city.

The sea is at least 350 km away and in between is a typical German landscape with lots of forests and farmland, with only a few lakes.

Smews can appear on smaller waters but in the Netherlands they stay close to the coast, large rivers and lakes. Common Scoters are rare on fresh water here.

For english speakers, in German a lake is called ''See'' '(pronounced as 'zay') and the sea is called ''Meer'.
For Dutch speakers it's even more confusing, a lake is for us ''meer'' and the sea is ''zee'' (pronounced as 'zay'). In German ''meer'' is ''See'' and ''zee'' is ''Meer''

So Olbersdorfer See sounds huge to us but is in fact just a lake.

​

 

[Henry_Flower]

It's really surprising for me that Common Scoters are this far inland, on that small pond, close to a city.

The sea is at least 350 km away and in between is a typical German landscape with lots of forests and farmland, with only a few lakes.

Smews can appear on smaller waters but in the Netherlands they stay close to the coast, large rivers and lakes. Common Scoters are rare on fresh water here.

For english speakers, in German a lake is called ''See'' '(pronounced as 'zay') and the sea is called ''Meer'.
For Dutch speakers it's even more confusing, a lake is for us ''meer'' and the sea is ''zee'' (pronounced as 'zay'). In German ''meer'' is ''See'' and ''zee'' is ''Meer''

So Olbersdorfer See sounds huge to us but is in fact just a lake.

​

Checking earlier reports on ebird, I noticed that an earlier observer mentioned that he regularly sees them in northern Czech Republic.

 

[THE_FERN]

Scoters are fantastic for showing up in the weirdest places. Long-tailed duck is the same and both have distinction of having been in my local park in central London, the lake of which is too shallow and small to attract anything apart from tufties and mallard. Divers are good at this too, but of course need something deeper so often favour lakes in out of town developments