Canvasback

On 15 October 2019, Erika and I found a variety of waterfowl—including this male Canvasback—at Capitol Lake in Olympia. The duck made repeated dives, accounting for the splashes of water on its head. They are primarily vegetarians, but, expeically when breeding, are not advese to taking various invertebrates. Canvasbacks breed across Alaska and western Canada south into the northern Great Plains and parts of the northwestern United States. Populations are severely affected by drought, sometimes not breeding at all during dry years. They winter across ice-free areas of the United States south into Central America. Wintering birds are concentrated in the Chesapeake Bay (although numbers have greatly declined there due to declines in Wild Celery), the lower Mississippi Valley, and in the San Francisco area.