Velvet Scoter Melanitta fusca
Scarce passage migrant and winter visitor. Rare inland and in summer.
Velvet Scoters: left, Barton Pits March 2008 (Graham Catley); centre, Huttoft car terrace on 11th October 2013 (John Clarkson);
right, Covenham Reservoir December 7th 2022 (Phil Hyde)
The Atlas reported in the mid-1990s that flocks of up to 100 had been seen exceptionally, but nothing like that has been reported in recent years. Over the 8 years to 2021 LBR reports indicate that annual numbers ranged between 29 (2015) and 124 (2017). The largest flocks were both in January 2017 and peaked at 44 off Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe NNR and 21 off Tetney. Some of these birds stayed into March. Typically, no birds are seen from May until passage begins usually in August, rarely in July. Passage picks up through autumn until November when sometimes wintering flocks stay through until March. During this 5-year period there were 2 reports of inland birds. A single one-day bird at Covenham Reservoir in November 2016 and two at Toft Newton Reservoir in 2014 that turned up on November 16th and stayed though to December 13th. More recently an immature Velvet Scoter was at Covenham Reservoir November 19th-December 11th 2022.
(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included September 2022)