High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Velvet Scoter (Melanitta fusca), also called a Velvet Duck or whitewing (not to be confused with the white-winged scoter), is a large sea duck, which breeds over the far north of Europe and Asia west of the Yenisey basin. A small, isolated population nests in eastern Turkey. The East Siberian and North American White-winged Scoter is sometimes considered conspecific with the Velvet Scoter, and its two constituent subspecies are then known as M. f. stejnegeri and M. f. deglandi. Velvet and White-winged Scoter, along with the Surf Scoter, are placed in the subgenus Melanitta, distinct from the subgenus Oidemia, Black and Common Scoters.