Canvasback
Encyclopedia
The Canvasback is the largest of the North American diving duck
s, that ranges from between 48 – long and weighs approximately 862 –, with a wingspan of 79 –. The canvasback has a distinctive wedge-shaped head and long graceful neck. The adult male (drake) has a black bill, a chestnut red head and neck, a black breast, a grayish back, black rump, and a blackish brown tail. The drake's sides, back, and belly are white with fine vermiculation
resembling the weave of a canvas, which gave rise to the bird's common name. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. The iris
is bright red in the spring, but duller in the winter. The adult female (hen) also has a black bill, a light brown head and neck, grading into a darker brown chest and foreback. The sides, flanks, and back are grayish brown. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. Its sloping profile distinguishes it from other ducks.
, whose winter bud
s and rhizome
s are the Canvasback's preferred food during the nonbreeding period. The duck's name is based on early European inhabitants of North America's assertion that its back was a canvas
like color. In other languages it is just a white-backed duck; for example in French
, morillon à dos blanc, or Spanish
, pato lomo blanco. In Mexico
it is called pato coacoxtle.
prairie pothole
s. The bulky nest is built from vegetation in a marsh
and lined with down
. Loss of nesting habitat has caused populations to decline. The Canvasback usually takes a new mate each year, pairing in late winter on ocean bays. It prefers to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by emergent vegetation, such as cattail
s and bulrush
es, which provide protective cover. Other important breeding areas are the subarctic
river deltas in Saskatchewan
and the interior of Alaska
.
It has a clutch size of approximately 5-11 eggs that are a greenish drab. The chicks are covered in down at hatching and able to leave the nest soon after. The Canvasback sometimes lays its eggs in other Canvasback nests and Redheads
often parasitize
Canvasback nests.
to wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic United States and the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV)
, or the Pacific Flyway
to wintering grounds along the coast of California
. Historically, the Chesapeake Bay
wintered the majority of Canvasbacks, but with the recent loss of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the bay, their range has shifted south towards the LMAV. Brackish estuarine
bays and marshes with abundant submergent vegetation and invertebrates are ideal wintering habitat for Canvasbacks.
In the early 1950s it was estimated that there were 225,000 Canvasbacks wintering in the Chesapeake Bay
; this represented one-half of the entire North America
n population. By 1985, there were only 50,000 ducks wintering there, or one-tenth of the population. Canvasbacks were extensively hunted around the turn of the century, but federal hunting regulations restrict their harvest, so hunting was ruled out as a cause for the decline. Scientists have now concluded that the decline in duck populations was due to the decline in (SAV) acreage. Today the population has stabilized and is even increasing slightly, although it is nowhere near previous levels. Studies have now shown that by the 1970s four fifths of the ducks’ diet was made up of Baltic clams
, which are very common in the Chesapeake Bay: the ducks have been able to adapt to the decline in SAV by changing their diet. Redhead ducks
, which also feed on SAV tubers, have not been able to adapt, and their population remains low.
Many species of ducks, including the Canvasback, are highly migratory
, but are effectively conserved by protecting the places where they nest, even though they may be hunted away from their breeding grounds. Protecting key feeding and breeding grounds is key for conserving many types of migratory birds.
Diving duck
The diving ducks, commonly called pochards or scaups, are a category of duck which feed by diving beneath the surface of the water. They are part of the diverse and very large Anatidae family that includes ducks, geese, and swans....
s, that ranges from between 48 – long and weighs approximately 862 –, with a wingspan of 79 –. The canvasback has a distinctive wedge-shaped head and long graceful neck. The adult male (drake) has a black bill, a chestnut red head and neck, a black breast, a grayish back, black rump, and a blackish brown tail. The drake's sides, back, and belly are white with fine vermiculation
Vermiculated
Vermiculated means covered with a dense but irregular pattern of lines, as though made by worm-tracks; the word derives frrom the Latin for worm...
resembling the weave of a canvas, which gave rise to the bird's common name. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. The iris
Iris (anatomy)
The iris is a thin, circular structure in the eye, responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupils and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. "Eye color" is the color of the iris, which can be green, blue, or brown. In some cases it can be hazel , grey, violet, or even pink...
is bright red in the spring, but duller in the winter. The adult female (hen) also has a black bill, a light brown head and neck, grading into a darker brown chest and foreback. The sides, flanks, and back are grayish brown. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. Its sloping profile distinguishes it from other ducks.
Etymology
The species name valisineria comes from Vallisneria americana, the scientific name of wild celeryWild celery
Wild celery is a plant in the family Hydrocharitaceae . Contrary to the implications of its name, wild celery bears little to no resemblance to the celery used as a vegetable. Wild celery grows under water and is consumed by various animals, including the canvasback...
, whose winter bud
Bud
In botany, a bud is an undeveloped or embryonic shoot and normally occurs in the axil of a leaf or at the tip of the stem. Once formed, a bud may remain for some time in a dormant condition, or it may form a shoot immediately. Buds may be specialized to develop flowers or short shoots, or may have...
s and rhizome
Rhizome
In botany and dendrology, a rhizome is a characteristically horizontal stem of a plant that is usually found underground, often sending out roots and shoots from its nodes...
s are the Canvasback's preferred food during the nonbreeding period. The duck's name is based on early European inhabitants of North America's assertion that its back was a canvas
Canvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
like color. In other languages it is just a white-backed duck; for example in French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, morillon à dos blanc, or Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, pato lomo blanco. In Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
it is called pato coacoxtle.
Breeding
The breeding habitat of the Canvasback is in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
prairie pothole
Prairie pothole
The Prairie Pothole Region is an area of the northern Great Plains and midgrass and tallgrass prairies that contains thousands of shallow wetlands known as potholes. These potholes are the result of glacier activity in the Wisconsin glaciation, which ended approximately 10,000 years ago...
s. The bulky nest is built from vegetation in a marsh
Marsh
In geography, a marsh, or morass, is a type of wetland that is subject to frequent or continuous flood. Typically the water is shallow and features grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, other herbaceous plants, and moss....
and lined with down
Down feather
The down of birds is a layer of fine feathers found under the tougher exterior feathers. Very young birds are clad only in down. Powder down is a specialized type of down found only in a few groups of birds. Down is a fine thermal insulator and padding, used in goods such as jackets, bedding,...
. Loss of nesting habitat has caused populations to decline. The Canvasback usually takes a new mate each year, pairing in late winter on ocean bays. It prefers to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by emergent vegetation, such as cattail
Typha
Typha is a genus of about eleven species of monocotyledonous flowering plants in the family Typhaceae. The genus has a largely Northern Hemisphere distribution, but is essentially cosmopolitan, being found in a variety of wetland habitats...
s and bulrush
Schoenoplectus
Schoenoplectus is a genus of about 80 species of sedges with a cosmopolitan distribution. Note that the name bulrush is also applied to species in the unrelated genus Typha...
es, which provide protective cover. Other important breeding areas are the subarctic
Subarctic
The Subarctic is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic and covering much of Alaska, Canada, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and northern Mongolia...
river deltas in Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
and the interior of Alaska
Alaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
.
It has a clutch size of approximately 5-11 eggs that are a greenish drab. The chicks are covered in down at hatching and able to leave the nest soon after. The Canvasback sometimes lays its eggs in other Canvasback nests and Redheads
Redhead (duck)
The Redhead is a medium-sized diving duck, 37 cm long with an 84 cm wingspan.The adult male has a blue bill, a red head and neck, a black breast, yellow eyes and a grey back. The adult female has a brown head and body and a darker bluish bill with a black tip.The breeding habitat is...
often parasitize
Brood parasite
Brood parasites are organisms that use the strategy of brood parasitism, a kind of kleptoparasitism found among birds, fish or insects, involving the manipulation and use of host individuals either of the same or different species to raise the young of the brood-parasite...
Canvasback nests.
Migration
The Canvasback migrates through the Mississippi FlywayMississippi Flyway
The Mississippi Flyway is a bird migration route that generally follows the Mississippi River in the United States and the Mackenzie River in Canada. The main endpoints of the flyway include central Canada and the region surrounding the Gulf of Mexico...
to wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic United States and the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV)
Lower Mississippi River
The Lower Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River downstream of Cairo, Illinois. From the confluence of the Ohio River and Upper Mississippi River at Cairo, the Lower flows just under 1600 kilometers to the Gulf of Mexico...
, or the Pacific Flyway
Pacific Flyway
The Pacific Flyway is a major north-south route of travel for migratory birds in America, extending from Alaska to Patagonia. Every year, migratory birds travel some or all of this distance both in spring and in fall, following food sources, heading to breeding grounds, or travelling to...
to wintering grounds along the coast of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Historically, the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
wintered the majority of Canvasbacks, but with the recent loss of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the bay, their range has shifted south towards the LMAV. Brackish estuarine
Estuary
An estuary is a partly enclosed coastal body of water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea....
bays and marshes with abundant submergent vegetation and invertebrates are ideal wintering habitat for Canvasbacks.
Diet
The Canvasback feeds mainly by diving, sometimes dabbling, mostly eating seeds, buds, leaves, tubers, roots, snails, and insect larvae. Besides its namesake, wild celery, the Canvasback shows a preference for the tubers of sago pondweed, which can make up 100% of its diet at times. The Canvasback has large webbed feet adapted for diving, and its bill helps it dig tubers from the substrate. In the late 1930s, studies showed that four-fifths of the food eaten by Canvasbacks was plant material.In the early 1950s it was estimated that there were 225,000 Canvasbacks wintering in the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...
; this represented one-half of the entire North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
n population. By 1985, there were only 50,000 ducks wintering there, or one-tenth of the population. Canvasbacks were extensively hunted around the turn of the century, but federal hunting regulations restrict their harvest, so hunting was ruled out as a cause for the decline. Scientists have now concluded that the decline in duck populations was due to the decline in (SAV) acreage. Today the population has stabilized and is even increasing slightly, although it is nowhere near previous levels. Studies have now shown that by the 1970s four fifths of the ducks’ diet was made up of Baltic clams
Macoma balthica
Macoma balthica, commonly called the Baltic macoma, Baltic clam or Baltic tellin, is a small saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk in the family Tellinidae ....
, which are very common in the Chesapeake Bay: the ducks have been able to adapt to the decline in SAV by changing their diet. Redhead ducks
Redhead (duck)
The Redhead is a medium-sized diving duck, 37 cm long with an 84 cm wingspan.The adult male has a blue bill, a red head and neck, a black breast, yellow eyes and a grey back. The adult female has a brown head and body and a darker bluish bill with a black tip.The breeding habitat is...
, which also feed on SAV tubers, have not been able to adapt, and their population remains low.
Conservation
Populations have fluctuated widely. Low levels in 1980s put the Canvasback on lists of special concern, but numbers increased greatly in the 1990s. The canvasback is particularly vulnerable to drought and wetland drainage on the prairies of North America.Many species of ducks, including the Canvasback, are highly migratory
Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal journey undertaken by many species of birds. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Sometimes, journeys are not termed "true migration" because they are irregular or in only one direction...
, but are effectively conserved by protecting the places where they nest, even though they may be hunted away from their breeding grounds. Protecting key feeding and breeding grounds is key for conserving many types of migratory birds.