Lesser Scaup on Round Lough

Every winter I try to check some lakes in County Cavan for wildfowl. The main reason for this is that it gets fairly tedious checking the same lakes in south Monaghan and the change of scenery is always good. In previous winters my checks in Cavan have proven completely fruitless with Greenland White-fronted Goose and a hybrid Pochard x Tufted Duck being the best I could dig out. Despite having a successful start to the winter locally with two self-found Ring-necked Ducks on my local patch including a lovely first-winter female as well as a drake Greater Scaup (which are getting quite tricky to dig out each winter), I was itching to get back into County Cavan for a chance at rare diving ducks. When Aidan Kelly found Lesser Scaup on Lough Sheelin, I decided the next chance I got I would try for it and then spend the rest of the day checking other lakes. On Sunday the 5th of December 2021, I headed over to Lough Sheelin and pretty much immediately picked up Aidan’s Lesser Scaup in amongst a flock of Tufted Ducks and a few Greater Scaup. A Great Northern Diver was also present and was my first time seeing one inland. The views however, were crap as I was looking pretty much directly into the sun. I picked up a duck just before I left which was very likely to be a hybrid Pochard x Tufted Duck but due to the crap light I would have liked better views to be sure. I planned to leave and return in the evening so that the sun wouldn’t have been in my eyes. I headed north towards the town of Belturbet. In previous years I have been very impressed with the amount of diving ducks some of these lakes can hold and so I was quietly confident I would dig out a Ring-necked at least. However, I was struggling to find any ducks. I had checked a few lakes which usually have good number, but there was nothing doing. Round Lough was next on the hitlist and even before I could stop the car, I could see that the lake was nearly black with diving ducks. I quickly parked and threw up the scope and started scanning. About a minute into my scan, I picked up an Aythya facing away, and preening its belly which had a really interesting head shape. Before I had even seen the colour of the back I knew I was onto something. After what seemed like an eternity it stopped preening and it was clearly a Scaup. A small, pointy headed stunner. This was it! Anyone that knows me will know that Lesser Scaup has been one of my most wanted finds for a few years now and now I had my chance. All I had to do now was prove it was a Lesser Scaup.
Drake Lesser Scaup with Tufted Ducks 

The views were distant. Too distant to get any definitive features. Despite being about 600 meters from the bird I was very confident I had the real deal. I checked Google Maps and there was another road that would give closer views and would have the sun directly behind me. The distance halved when I tried the other vantage point, and the views were much better. Through the scope I could clearly see that the bill pattern was spot on for Lesser Scaup. The dark tip on the bill was restricted to the nail only rather than the ‘dipped in ink’ look that a hybrid would show. I was now a third of the way there to nailing the ID…pardon the pun.
Black tip to bill restricted to the nail 

Next off the list was the upperparts. It took a surprisingly long time to be sure that the upperparts consisted of vermiculations rather than being uniform in colour. At 600m range I couldn’t pick up on this but at 250-300m on full zoom and in the good light it certainly was. I was now within touching distance of having a pure drake Lesser Scaup. The last hurdle was going to be the trickiest. I needed to see the spread wing. This took four hours to get! But it was worth the wait. There was clearly a sharp divide between the white secondaries and the dull grey primaries. It was some relief when I finally secured the final piece of the puzzle. Done and dusted!
Sharp divide between primaries and secondaries 

By this stage I was hungry and absolutely freezing. Even the locals who stopped to ask what I was looking at offered me tea and biscuits. I decided to have one last scan of the lake before getting back into the car and putting the heat on full blast. Only a few seconds into my last scan I picked up a drake Ring-necked Duck! My third self found of the winter. By now it would be pretty much impossible to age it without seeing it out of the water unfortunately. I also picked up a great example of Tufted x Pochard. There seems to be quite a few of them around this winter. If seen poorly it could be a pitfall for the unwary. What a brilliant lake. Its hard to even estimate how many Tufted were on the lake but there was certainly 500 plus with only 4 Pochard and a handful of Goldeneye. Quality winter birding. Ferruginous Duck next…
Drake Ring-necked Duck
Hybrid Tufted Duck x Pochard

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