Description
The adult Greater Scaup is 39–56 cm (15–22 in) long with a 71–84 cm (28–33 in) wingspan and a body mass of 726–1,360 g (1.60–3.0 lb). It has a blue bill and yellow eyes and is 20% heavier and 10% longer than the closely related Lesser Scaup. The male has a dark head with a green sheen, a black breast, a light back, a black tail, and a white underside. The drake or male Greater Scaup is larger and has a more rounded head than the female. The drake's belly and flanks are a bright white. Its neck, upper chest, and tail feathers are a glossy black, while its lower flanks are gray. The drake also has a white speculum on its wings. The adult female has a white band and brown oval shaped patches at the base of the bill, which is a slightly duller shade of blue than the drake's bill. Females have grey on both their legs and feet. They have a brown body and head, with white bands on their wingtips. Juvenile Greater Scaup look similar to adult females. The Greater Scaup drake's eclipse plumage looks similar to its breeding plumage, except the pale parts of the plumage are a buffy gray. Distinguishing Greater from Lesser scaups can be extraordinarily difficult in the field, especially in terms of plumage, although (depending on posture) their general shape is slightly different.
Read more about this topic: Greater Scaup
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“The Sage of Toronto ... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a “global village” instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle’s present vulgarity.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)
“The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)