Tags
1st-winter drake Scaup, Aythya marila, birding, birdwatching, British birds, Cosmeston, Cosmeston Lakes Country Park, Greater scaup, juvenile Scaup, Scaup
On Sunday I went to Cosmeston Lakes Country Park to look for the Scaup that has, since 13 December, been enjoying the delights of the lakes and the company of the huge number of Tufted ducks currently resident there. I had a wonderful mooch about but couldn’t find the Scaup (though I did spot a Hawfinch, a rare visitor, and was very pleased with that).
So, I went back again on Monday, partly to look again for that Hawfinch but also for the Scaup. And I was lucky with both birds, with another very fleeting, distant view of the finch but superb close views of the Scaup, which came to feed on the seed I always carry with me in the winter.
This is a drake Scaup – actually a Greater scaup (Aythya marila), which is usually just known as Scaup, as the Lesser scaup is so rarely seen, and a first-winter bird, as it doesn’t yet have its adult plumage – the brown colouring you can see on this bird will disappear as it develops into an adult.
In south Wales, the Scaup is an uncommon winter visitor and passage migrant, which, according to the latest Glamorgan Bird Report, enjoyed a ‘welcome increase of records and numbers’ in the 2017 first winter period (i.e. between January and mid April). Let’s hope the increasing number of sightings of this handsome little duck continues.
Lovely photos, Annie.
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Thanks a lot, Joyce. I was lucky to get within a few metres of this bird and even got to sit on a bench to take the photos. If only all birds were so obliging … but, on second thoughts, no – that would make birding much too easy and less fun! 🙂
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