A bird we have seen on our trip to the Solway each year, in varying numbers, is the Scaup. A winter visitor to our shores; although a few, and I mean a few, breed in Scotland each year. This makes them the UK’s rarest breeding duck. This one was photographed on our tour to the Solway last weekend.
We were looking through a load of ducks and swans up at Caerlaverock the other day and this little chapess was swimming among the maelstrom of feathers, beaks and webbed feet. Scaup are not unusual in the area. We found several on the estuary. More about the tour to the Solway and what we saw in future posts.
Tufted Ducks nest on the smallest of farm ponds so to see a family party swim past me the other day was not too out of place. But wait a minute. That lead drake isn’t a Tufted at all. It’s a Scaup.
Now an inland Scaup in July in the UK is not unknown but it is quite scarce. A breeding Scaup, all be it with a female Tufted Duck, is not unheard of in the far reaches of Northern Scotland … but this is Norfolk!
I haven’t been to this small private patch of water for over a month so I’m unsure if the Scaup is the father. It may be the drake Tufted Duck is absent and the Scaup is just seeking the company of other Aythya ducks. We will just have to see if the Scaup hangs around and if youngsters grow up with hybrid qualities.
Letter From Norfolk 