canvasback drake

Canvasbacks obtain most of their food by diving, scouring the muddy marsh or lake bottom for succulent roots and tubers of aquatic plants.

Canvasback

 

Canvasback

Aythya valisineria

This big diving duck is usually found in the deeper, open water of marshes, and marshy edges of lakes. The wedge-shaped bill, merging into the forehead, gives this duck a distinctive head outline, while the white back of the drake provides the basis for its name. Canvasbacks obtain most of their food by diving, scouring the muddy marsh or lake bottom for succulent roots and tubers of aquatic plants. Sago pondweed tubers on the prairies and wild celery in the east are its favourites. The nest, built over water, is a sturdy, basket-like structure of woven emergent vegetation lined with finer material and securely attached to surrounding vegetation. As many as ten eggs may be laid.

 
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