Heslington East was pretty quiet this morning, with a dozen Tufted Ducks and a few Gadwall and Teal. No sign of the female Scaup, which presumably has moved on. I headed up to Castle Howard as I always fancy a diver here in late autumn. Good numbers of ducks were present, including the resident Red-crested Pochard (and one of it's hybrid young), 102 Gadwall, 55+ Wigeon, 6 Goosanders, 3 Pintails and 4 Shovelers. About 100 Mute Swans were present along with a family group of two adult and two juvenile Whooper Swans, fresh in from Iceland. As I walked along, two more adult Whoopers dropped in out of an increasingly grey sky.
Further along, a big raft of Tufted Ducks was feeding intensively and I repeatedly scanned the flock for something interesting, which wasn't easy as they were diving frequently. After a bit, I noticed a bird that hinted at juvenile Lesser Scaup. It was a warmer, rufous brown compared with the dark chocolate Tufty females/imms, and had a distinct peak to the back of the head and a long dark grey Scaup-esque beak with very little black on the tip. A white spot was present against the bill on the lores and the eye appeared a dull yellow. The bird was slightly smaller than the Tufties and together with the head and bill profile, I picked it up relatively easy among the flock when it surfaced. However, with 85+ feeding aythyas, it was very hard to keep on the bird and my hands were numb in the freezing wind (I had no big coat, gloves or hat - rookie error) so I really struggled to get any decent images. Sadly in the time I was there, the bird didn't stop feeding and therefore did no preening which might have yielded a wing-flap and the all important wingbar diagnosis.
I am really not sure about this bird. It has some things going for it being a Lesser Scaup, but I am just not sure about the headshape being spot on (forehead not particularly steep, though maybe this was due to constant diving, meaning feathers were flattened?) and the mantle is perhaps too dark, offering contrast with the flanks. The black may bleed a little off the nail, but perhaps that is ok for LS in a first-winter bird? I had to leave the bird at 11:00 and head back. I put the news out as a possible just to try and get some sharper people to have a look at it, just in case.
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