--- [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> The bird looked just like all the other male Lesser Scaup, but it had  a RED
> BILL that seemed to have a lighter (possibly yellowish) tip to it.


I googled "scaup bill tag" and got a couple of hits. Apparently scaup were
banded and bill-tagged in Missouri in 2005 as part of a investigation of their
population decline in the Mississippi flyway. I don't know if anyone else has
been bill-tagging scaup more recently, but I suppose there's no reason to think
your bird couldn't have been in Missouri in '05.

The most informative link is this one to a Minnesota list-serv:

http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/2006-April/008283.html

Happy birding,


Paul Gardner
Columbus, OH

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