Scaup (Aythya marila) Photo by By Calibas – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3435173

Dear Readers, I have never knowingly seen a Scaup (though several have been spotted at Walthamstow Wetlands this year), but it’s an easy duck to miss, especially when hanging out with a bunch of Tufted Ducks. But what an elegant duck it is! I love the ball-shaped iridescent green head and that scraffito pattern on the back. The female is definitely trickier but is gorgeous in her own right.

Scaup (female) Photo by By Mykola Swarnyk – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86073306

Scaups are larger than Tufted Ducks, and don’t have the characteristic Tufty ‘tuft’ on their heads. They are also technically sea ducks, though they can also be seen on reservoirs. They are largely winter visitors and can be seen anywhere in the UK and Ireland except for the north of Cornwall and the west of Scotland. Incidentally, the much rarer Lesser Scaup is an occasional visitor to the UK – I once joined a group of birdwatchers who had found a Lesser Scaup on a gravel pit in Dungeness, with no idea of what a privilege seeing this nondescript little duck was. The Lesser Scaup is a North American bird, so one of those that’s occasionally blown off course and ends up in Europe.

Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) Photo by By Connor Mah – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41433104

Anyhow, let’s return to the (Greater) Scaup. It isn’t a rare bird across its range (which includes the tundra areas of Canada, Alaska and Eurasia), but it is becoming rarer in the UK. The number of birds visiting the UK has declined by 60% from 2009 to 2018, but their numbers have stayed stable in Denmark, and have increased in Sweden, Estonia, Germany and Poland. In short, this is yet another example of a migratory bird ‘short-stopping’ – as we’ve said before, why would you travel all the way to the UK if you can find what you need closer to home? However, even here the birds are under threat, from intensive fishing reducing the quality and quantity of food available, particularly in the Baltic.

The species name ‘marila‘ means ‘charcoal embers’ or ‘coal dust’, both rather beautiful descriptions. And what does a Scaup sound like? Well, here are some Finnish Scaup in flight, recorded by Lauri Hallikainen:

And here are some Icelandic Scaup calling on Lake Mývatn (recorded by Patrik Āberg) with lots of other exciting waterbirds in the background (including Whooper Swan)

And here’s another flight call but with lovely wing beats as well (recorded by Lars Edenius in Sweden)

And finally, here’s a poem by Megan Snyder-Camp. Read it slowly. And in fact, you can hear it being read by the author, which makes it clearer. I rather like it – it reminds me of the generosity of many birdwatchers when they realise that you are serious.

Nisqually

At the riverbank listening for sea lions
from years ago the husk of their breath

a woman photographing trees
the rest of us staring up at a pair of falcons

the rest of us wanting to feel other lives pass through us
with swiftness and fear the migration we’ve read about

naming midflight what’s leaving us my son is twelve
and men along the path offer their scopes

so he can see each feathering hours lavished years between sightings
nights listening to recorded calls feathering their phones

to show what they’ve seen before and when my son
names each bird the men light up to have been loved in return

along the shore a duck which over the next hour
becomes a lesser scaup my son’s name entered

in the logbook of rarities a day of utter joy the blue beak dappled back
the particular rise of the headfeathers the golden eye opened and shut

Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis) Photo by Alan D. Wilson, CC BY-SA 2.5 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5>, via Wikimedia Commons