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Posted by Colin Gjervold on 19:08:24 01/01/07
In Reply to: Mystery Duck at ECO Pond posted by Trey for Paul-the-other
I thought I would pass along a great Scaup ID tip I learned from visiting Joe Morlan's California Birding Pages, which is an excellent site for gleaning ID tips and techniques from the "mystery bird" discussions and debates. Check it out for yourself at http://fog.ccsf.cc.ca.us/~jmorlan/
When speaking about identifying Scaup by head shape he states "I found that a more reliable difference was the ratio of the width of the head to the length of the body. Lesser Scaups have much narrower heads than Greaters and that difference is based on the actual skull, not the feathers. The width of the head on Lesser is about 1/4 of the body length while that of Greater is about 1/3 of body length. This should work with photos in good profile."
While I would not say that this is a definitive way to deterine a Scaup to Species level, I would say it it a strongly supporting factor that can be applied relatively easily with a good profile viewpoint. I myself this past Thursday found and identified a scaup as a Greater and the head/body width formula worked magnificently.
The one supplied photo to the bird board of the mystery scaup doesn't have the best angle to apply the afformentioned method, but I would still tend that it fits best with a Greater Scaup, but I would as everybody else, like to see some more pics when they become available.
Here's to great birding in 2007!
Colin
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