Canvasback ducks: Valeport Marsh, Saskatchewan

Female  canvasback,
surrounded by males.© SB

We drove to Valeport Marsh today looking for birds, those returning for summer or migrating through. There were about a dozen canvasback ducks — too far out in the semi-frozen water for my eyes to even notice, but my camera sees much farther, and when I scanned the edges of the pictures I'd taken of tundra swans, they appeared.

Magic!

Male canvasbacks are brightly coloured with a rust head and neck, white sides and wing back, and red eyes. Female canvasbacks are drabber, but have that same distinctive sloping forehead and bill, says the National Wildlife Federation's Field Guild to Birds of North America.

I admire the fortitude of these ducks — floating in ice!

The river is semi-frozen, but the canvasbacks don't care  © SB

What are these? Canvasback ducks     
Location: Valeport Marsh, near Craven in the Quappelle Basin, north of Regina, near the picnic site.  
Photo date: March 25, 2012. 

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