Notes- \u3ci\u3eNebraska Bird Review\u3c/i\u3e (December 1980)

NOTES MOTTLED DUCK. On 5 October 1958 I shot but just winged a female Mottled Duck. This was in Howard Co., on the Loup River, which borders our farm. I kept her (which was legal at the time), got a drake from Texas, and had them for years. I reared many young from the pair. - Wm. W. Lemburg, Rt. 1, Box 96, Cairo, Nebraska 68824 EUROPEAN WIGEON IN SARPY COUNTY. On 28 March 1980, from 4:30 to 5 p.m., I observed a European Wigeon in a flock of migrating waterfowl at a wet field just east of the allied Chemical plant at LaPlatte. Even though I had never seen one before, the instant I saw it I knew that it was a wigeon but not a common. I viewed it through 7 x35 Bushnell binoculars and a B& L spotting scope at 15x, 20x , and 30x. The bird was approximately 100 yards away. It was about the size of the American Wigeon (seemed a little slimmer and more compact) but the head, neck, and breast (chest) were a bright rufous or cinnamon color. It was in full breeding plumage. As the bird swam and turned its head, catching the evening sunlight, the vivid gold stripe on the head was very apparent. I also noticed more white on the flank. There appeared to be a female with it but I was so intent on watching the bird that I could not say that it, too, was a European Wigeon. I used Peterson\u27s and Robbin\u27s field guides, and also I described the bird in detail to Andy Saunders, Chief Naturalist at the Fontenelle Forest Nature Center, and to Dr. Roger Sharpe, of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, both of whom have experience in identifying this species. They both agreed with me that the description was indeed that of the European Wigeon. - Ruth Green, 506 West 31st Avenue, Bellevue, Nebraska 68005