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The Scaup

The scaup, the Grey Duck, the Mountain Duck, and the Brown Duck breed on the run. Although much reduced in numbers during the last quarter century, there still winter with us one or two considerable flocks of the first-mentioned species, perhaps in all 180 or 200 birds. About Mid-August the majority of these Scaup leave the run, the remainder staying on the lake and breeding round its shores. Nowhere else on the run do they nest, and during my stay at Tutira I have never seen at any time of the year Scaup either in the open river beds or in the deep creeks.

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This year, on September 10th, the largest flock still with us numbered 48 birds, and there may have been another 20 birds scattered about the different bays.

The Scaup's breeding season extends over many months, the first lot of little ducklings appearing last year on November 27th, and within a few days, several other broods, also just hatched, were noticed on the lake.

The last lot observed were a day or two old on March 7th, and on March 12th a pair were known to be sitting.

In early autumn they begin to reassemble from all quarters and reunite in one or two large flocks, spending the hours of daylight in deep water, and far from shore, and only at nightfall venturing into the shadows and raupo beds.

Four nests were obtained during last season, and from the first discovered, when deserted by the old birds, the eggs were taken, placed under a hen and duly hatched on November 27th.

The eggs, of a brownish olive green colour, and considerably polished, are large for the size of the duck, as big, in fact, as those of a Buff Orpington hen. They page 37 are slightly flattened at the blunt end, and average 1107 grains.

A second nest when found contained two addled eggs, and had just been vacated, the parents taking off with them seven young ducklings.

Within a couple of yards of this nest was built another holding eight fresh eggs. The fourth, taken on 4th of January, contained three addled eggs. The birds had just left it, their brood still hanging about the raupo in its immediate vicinity.

Although comparatively easy to locate the whereabouts of a Scaup's nest, its actual espial is by no means a simple matter.

Indeed, the bird almost seems to disdain concealment of herself, so much does she rely on the difficulties of the discovery of her nest. Often she can be seen openly leaving the lake edge and swimming straight out from shore. You may be sure she has just quitted her eggs, and after a few trials be almost equally sure of your failure to find them. The nest is buried among flax roots and fallen blades half supporting layers and layers of rubbish of ten, fifteen, and twenty years' accumulation.

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Often the bird sits entirely covered, deep in this dark mat of rotting fibre, and with barely room to raise her head. The bolt holes are so narrow and perpendicular, and the runs so tortuous that no rabbit would ever willingly take refuge in a thicket so liable to be blocked. The Scaup sits, moreover, with extraordinary nerve. Before I spotted the third nest of the four found this season I had burrowed—corkscrewed— deep into years' accumulation of old flax, and had actually got my nose within a foot of the sitting Scaup. It was, indeed, the smooth shining horn of the bill that first drew my attention to the bird, motionless in the gloom beneath these mats of shredded fibre.

This duck allowed me to gently remove much of this half-rotten stuff; indeed, her head had become visible, and I was roughly focussing the position with a white handkerchief when at last she scrambled up her bolt hole, hustled along her narrow run, and presently splashed into the water.

Another nest I found by microscopically careful examination of the lake edge, at first discovering a very indistinct trail from water to flax, then in the dark shade of page 39 masses of fallen blades, a fairly distinct passage free of all cobweb, winding beneath the dead stuff. I became more sure again, noting the traffic route, and especially where the birds had squeezed between a fork of manuka and an exposed flax root.

The discovery of an infinitesimal shred of brown down that could only have come from the covering of the eggs made me certain, and presently the glimpse of eggs was my reward. When the nest has been carefully covered by the Scaup before going off, discovery is even more difficult, as the brown down admirably matches the flax waste.

The proper gear for this kind of bird nesting is pickaxe, spade and lantern, the oldest possible rig-out, and a hat that can be glued to the skull like a cowl.

The little Scaup hatched out by our hens were tiny brown creatures with disproportionate feet, enormous for their bodies' size, and reminding one of children wearing their father's fishing brogues. They were not particularly wild in the sense of being timid, but rather only perfectly indifferent to their foster hen, deliberately leaving her when the netting was removed, and not page 40 attempting to return, or even evincing any sense of being lost. None of them survived.

Next year I intend to place among any young Scaup hatched a duckling of domesticated breed. The wild birds might thus be induced to more quickly take to the strange food offered them, and would also, I think, more readily accept the alien mother.

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