Lesser Scaup Images

Lesser Scaup Images, Facts and Information:

Aythya affinis

• Lesser Scaups are medium sized diving ducks. The males have finely barred, gray backs and white underparts. Their heads, necks, and breasts are black with a purple iridescence. They have blue gray bills, yellow eyes and black wings with large white patches. Female Lesser Scaups are brown overall with white bellies, white wing patches and white patches near the base of their bills. Females have brownish eyes.
• Lesser Scaups are migratory. During their breeding season they can be found from interior Alaska and northern Canada south to Colorado, Nebraska and farther east. Lesser Scaups winter along coasts from British Columbia and Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. They also over winter inland in Utah, Colorado, and the Great Lakes. They prefer ponds and marshes during the breeding season. During the winter they can be found on lakes, ponds, river and in southern locations on salt water.
• Lesser Scaups eat aquatic invertebrates including insects, mollusks, crustaceans and small fish. They also include seeds and vegetative aquatic plants in their diets.
• Lesser Scaups lay 6 to 15 eggs which hatch in 21 to 28 days. The females incubate and they are monogamous.
• A group of ducks can be called a “raft”, “paddling”, “flush” or “brace” of ducks.
• Lesser Scaups can live to be more than 18 years old.

I hope you enjoy viewing my Lesser Scaup photos.