WINTER’S WILDLIFE
Herculean task to find this beauty...
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The curious name of the canvasback supposedly explains why it stands out from the flock.
Early American wildfowlers coined the moniker because the duck’s sail-cloth plumage was said to make it an easier target when shot for the pot.
Mark Twain lamented the absence of canvasbacks this side of the Atlantic during a literary tour of Europe in the 1870s, craving a serving of the so-called King o’ Ducks fresh from Chesapeake Bay and fattened on wild celery.
Very occasionally, a canvasback does make it to British shores to the delight of birdwatchers, yet finding one among a bobbing raft of its closest Old World relatives can be a herculean task.
The drake canvasback is a souped-up version of our humble pochard. Its bill is bigger, its body longer and the ruby tones on the head more stunning.
Of all the features that help birdwatchers identify a canvasback at long range, it’s the ivory hues of the back and flanks that contrast markedly from the leaden tones of the pochard.
Trying to discern a single, silvery canvasback amid 500 pochards bobbing on choppy waters in the face of a biting northerly gale tests the mettle of any birder.
With watery eyes, frozen toes and numb fingers, my recent quest was made all the more demanding by the changing light patterns cast by the morning sun across Abberton Reservoir on the outskirts of Colchester, Essex.
Already faced with a challenge reminiscent of differentiating the white and grey tones found on one of those fancy DIY paint charts, things became more difficult as the pochards kept performing unsynchronised swimming moves. To my disappointment, the canvasback remained well hidden in the wildfowl swirls.
As I walked away with an old school friend, fingers and toes taking an age to thaw, we reminisced about seeing the last canvasback to visit these parts at the same location almost 26 years ago to the day.
Trying to discern one amid 500 pochards tests mettle of any birder