Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis)

County List:

Rule:

Forested or Nonforested Landscapes

      (Lake or River or Sewage Lagoons & Farm Ponds)
   adjacent to:
      Marsh 2

Habitat List:

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Literature:

Nesting occurs in grassy areas adjacent to lakes, ponds, and marsh areas with deeper water. This species feeds more deeply than some other members of the same genus. Sewage treatment ponds seem to attract this duck.

Habitat: Marsh ponds (summer), lakes, bays, estuaries. Summers around large marshes in prairie or forested regions. Winters on lakes, reservoirs, rivers, sheltered areas of coastal bays. Overlaps extensively with Greater Scaup, especially in winter, but at that season the Lesser is far more likely to be found on freshwater lakes and ponds well inland.

Diet: Includes mollusks, plant material. Diet varies with season and habitat, but animal matter may predominate, especially mollusks such as clams and snails, also aquatic insects, crustaceans. Also eats plant material such as stems and leaves of sea lettuce, pondweeds, wild celery, plus seeds of pondweeds, sedges, grasses and others. Birds on the Great Lakes may feed heavily on the introduced zebra mussel.

Nesting: Site is usually on dry land close to water, often on islands in lakes, surrounded by good cover of vegetation. Stands of bulrush in marsh especially favored. Nest is a slight depression with addition of some dry grass, lined with down.