Lesser Scaup Photos

Photography by Terry Sohl

My Favorite: Just your run-of-the-mill duck photo, but my favorite I have of Lesser Scaup. It was taken on a gloomy day on March 26th, 2017 at Dewey Gevik Nature Area near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was the end of a long winter...not so much in terms of bad weather (the winter was quite mild that year), but in terms of photography! I'd had very little luck getting good photos all winter long, and I wasn't expecting much when I headed out on this gloomy day. However, some time at the permanent blind at Dewey Gevik Nature Area can do wonders for your mood...and for filling up your hard drive with waterfowl photos. The light certainly wasn't good on this day, but I do like the photo of this male Lesser Scaup, just after he came up from a dive, with beads of water still dripping off of his head. I also like that despite the gloom, the light was enough to give you a bit of that greenish tinge to the otherwise black head.

Lesser Scaup - Aythya affinis


Lesser Scaup 1	Lesser Scaup 2	Lesser Scaup 3	Lesser Scaup 4
April 11th, 2010	April 8th, 2007	April 11th, 2010	April 22nd, 2019
Dewey Gevik Nature Area, South Dakota	Atkin's Slough, near Tea, South Dakota	Dewey Gevik Nature Area, South Dakota	Western Minnehaha County, South Dakota
Drake bird on calm morning with reflection	Small group of scaup on rippled water	Drake bird with reflection on calm morning	Two males and one female in flight against clear sky

Lesser Scaup 5	Lesser Scaup 6	Lesser Scaup 7	Lesser Scaup 8
March 26th, 2017	March 26th, 2006	May 1st, 2009	April 1st, 2012
Dewey Gevik Nature Area, South Dakota	Lake Vermillion, South Dakota	Lake Thompson, South Dakota	Dewey Gevik Nature Area, South Dakota
Profile of drake on cloudy day	Male taking flight from choppy waters	Side view of male swimming on rippled water	Female spreading her wings on rippled water

Lesser Scaup 9	Lesser Scaup 10	Lesser Scaup 11	Lesser Scaup 12
April 22nd, 2012	April 22nd, 2012	April 4th, 2020	March 26th, 2017
Near Tea, South Dakota	Near Tea, South Dakota	Western Minnehaha County, South Dakota	Western Minnehaha County, South Dakota
Profile of female scaup in warm evening light	Profile of drake scaup on a sunny day	Head-on view of a drake Lesser scaup showing diagnostic bill tip	Profile of male bird on cloudy, gloomy day

Lesser Scaup 13
March 26th, 2017
Western Minnehaha County, South Dakota
Profile of swimming female scaup