The Scaup is Britain’s rarest breeding duck according to the RSPB. I had heard reports that a duck …. as opposed to a drake…….. Scaup was on the local canal just literally down the road from my house so as soon as we had a break in the rainy weather I went down to have a look. It never ceases to amaze how easy it is to bump in to theses rare birds. When they are in an unusual area which they invariable are then they are easy to find. This one was behaving like ducks do and was paddling around very close to the pub garden all on her own and taking very little notice of anything going on. It did however draw the line at the canoeists that paddled by but apart from that seemed untroubled by anything.

In this photo she was having a bit of trouble working out which was ice and which was water.