--- [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 ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]