Scoping a Scaup

Thompson Water is sufficiently far off the beaten track to make for good birdwatching. Situated on the edge of the STANTA training area, at the end of a rough track, it is overlooked by many birdwatchers, drawing crowds only when something suitably rare turns up, such as the Pied-billed Grebe which appeared in 1999. This sizeable inland waterbody is part of a wider Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve and is a good place to look for wintering wildfowl. Last weekend, for example, I counted 26 Tufted Duck, a Pochard, six Gadwall and, most significantly, a solitary Scaup.

The Scaup is a winter visitor to Norfolk, with most individuals wintering on the sea off the Wash and the North Norfolk coast. Here they frequent the shallows of the mussel beds where they dive for ragworms, crustaceans and mussels; the name ‘scaup’ is derived from an old Scottish word for mussel bed. Numbers vary between years, with somewhere between 40 and 200 birds present annually. Higher numbers occur during cold winters, when birds leave other wintering areas off the Danish, German and Dutch coasts. In times past, huge winter flocks were noted at other British sites, attracted by the rich feeding opportunities provided by the sewage outfalls of old-fashioned treatment works. As new technologies came on stream, leading to less waste reaching the sea, the feeding opportunities were lost and the flocks diminished in size. Since much of the feeding takes place at night, with the birds retreating further offshore during the day, watching wintering Scaup can be a frustrating business.

However, despite the tendency to winter off the coast they are quite tolerant of brackish or even fresh water and inland records have become more frequent over the last couple of decades, making viewing that much easier. As such, it is worth scanning flocks of wintering duck on inland waters to see if any Scaup are present. This clearly paid off at Thompson last weekend. Despite the superficial similarity between the Scaup and the female Tufted Ducks with which it was associating at Thompson, it stood out quite clearly; a bulkier bird, obviously larger than the ‘tufties’ and more similar in size to the male Pochard that was also present. The head also seemed bulky, evenly rounded at the back and lacking the tell-tale tuft of the aptly-named Tufted Duck. More obvious features were the large white facial blaze and the pale cheek patch. Interestingly, some female Tufted Ducks may show a white blaze but this is never as pronounced as that seen in Scaup. I spent twenty minutes or so watching the bird, making the most of the good light and easy viewing to get better acquainted with this uncommon visitor.