noun

• A Eurasian, North American, and New Zealand diving duck, the male of which has a black head with a green or purple gloss.

  Genus Aythya, family Anatidae: three species, in particular the widespread A. marila, with a black breast and white sides

  ‘The lesser scaup is a lovely duck indeed, one that, on its own merits, should always be a pleasure to spy on a lake or stretch of sea coast.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘There are mallards galore, the males with their metallic green heads and the females a dowdy brown, and busy little black scaups, bobbing like bath toys.’
  • ‘As the tiny sailor joined the rest of its crew, our eyes were drawn to a small raft of scaup.’
  • ‘Such delays in nest initiation by scaup are especially alarming, given that scaup are migrating through North Dakota earlier than they did historically.’
  • ‘Two ducks common in the winter marsh - the canvasback and greater scaup - are now up in the Yukon and the Seward Peninsula.’