Lesser Scaup

Fascinating facts about the Lesser Scaup

• Lesser scaup weigh as little as a sack of flour yet can tip the scales at over a kilogram: adults range from 454 g to 1,089 g, with drakes averaging 820 g and hens about 730 g. Their compact bodies, 38-48 cm long and a 68-78 cm wingspan, make them the smallest North American diving duck. This tiny mass lets them dive quickly for mollusks and insects, but also means they lose heat fast, tying their survival to the availability of warm, shallow wetlands where they can refuel and stay insulated.
• Up to 26 eggs in a single nest, though most clutches hold 9-11 eggs. The eggs are 5.7 cm long and 3.9 cm wide, and incubation lasts about three weeks. Because the species nests on the ground in shallow depressions, over half of nests fail each year, 57 %, from predation or the female's death. The population, once 6.9 million in the 1970s, has halved to roughly three million today.
• Lesser scaup migrate in flocks of 25-50 birds from Arctic breeding lakes to winter habitats as far south as Colombia, traveling mainly along the Central and Mississippi Flyways. In winter they favor freshwater or slightly brackish lakes, even using small Caribbean islands like Grand Cayman. Thousands gather each year at Mexico's Topolobampo lagoons, and hundreds winter at Colombia's Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta.
• In the 1970s the North American scaup complex numbered about 6.9 million birds, but by the late 2000s estimates fell to three million or fewer. Despite this decline, the IUCN still lists the species as Least Concern. However, if the downward trend continues, the species could be uplisted to Near Threatened.
• Lesser scaup have a diet tightly linked to benthic invertebrates: they sift mud for mussels, clams, and especially amphipods, which peak later in the season. This timing forces them to nest later than most ducks, matching the surge of amphipod abundance. When zebra mussels invaded Lake Erie in the 1980s, scaup shifted routes to exploit this new food source, but because zebra mussels concentrate pollutants, the birds risk higher contaminant loads, illustrating how rapid ecosystem changes can both help and harm a species.

Sources

Every fact above was checked against these pages, and kept only where one of them states it.

• Wikipedia

At a glance

About the Lesser Scaup

As the misty veil of dawn lifts from the water's edge, the Lesser Scaup emerges, its sleek, dark form gliding effortlessly across the lake's surface, leaving a trail of rippling silence in its wake. With each stroke of its powerful wings, it propels itself forward, its feathered body undulating in a mesmerizing rhythm, as if the very essence of the aquatic world has been distilled into this singular, captivating creature. In its fluid, unhurried movements, we find a reflection of the serene and unassuming beauty that defines this enchanting duck, a true marvel of evolution.

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