We are pleased to announce the winner of our most recent Monday Nature Mystery, Chad Tragakis(Please email your snail mail address and preference for a hat or tote bag to [email protected]).
Congratulations to Chad for identifying this female Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). The female Lesser is a deeper brown than the female Greater Scaup. According to All About Birds, female Lesser Scaups make a small depression on the ground and slowly add grasses, other plant material, and downy feathers to make a saucer-shaped nest. Unlike other birds, females start laying eggs before the nest is complete, and continue to build the nest while she is laying eggs. Eggs are pale to dark olive or greenish buff. Lesser Scaup chicks don't waste any time. As soon as they're down dries, under the water they go. The little ones are a bit too buoyant to stay down for long, but by the time they are 5 to 7 weeks old, they can dive for up to 25 seconds and swim up to 60 feet underwater.
Last Week's Mystery: Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis). Photo: Rick Cameron via Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED
Each Monday we’ll post a new photo and identify the previous week’s winner. They’ll receive an ASNV hat or tote bag.
Be sure to post your answer on our Facebook page @AudubonVA under the Monday Mystery post...do not reply to this email with your guess! We only accept entries from our Facebook page, not via email.
Please remember to write the common name, being mindful of hyphens, uppercase and lowercase letters and always include the Latin name in parentheses. To learn more about bird names click here.
Who is this? Photo: Humberto Lima, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This week’s Mystery: What is this?
Post your guess (please list both common name and Latin name) on our Facebook page @AudubonVA under this week's Monday Nature Mystery. Remember, we only accept entries from our Facebook page, not via email!
Good luck!
-Audubon Society of Northern Virginia
Please note that we only accept entries on our Facebook page where they are date- and time-stamped. Remember that, if you need to correct your entry, you should make a new posting instead of correcting the old one so that we get a correct time stamp for your correction. Winners are limited to one prize every 90 days, maximum 2 per person.
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