During this season we have had a record number of Scaup. Since the first big day with Scaup on the 24th of September we have had more than 10,000 Aythya ducks at six occasions, with Scaup as the dominant species. So far, we have counted 93,000 Scaup and 27,000 Aythya sp which is double the number that was counted in the whole season of 2019, which was 46,000 and 8,000 respectively. We have many days of October to come and can still expect days with more than 1000 Scaup, so the season total will continue to rise. This extreme number of Aythyas seems to be a significant change, since Annika and co have been counting good numbers of Scaup with only half the hours and resources of coverage during the autumn seasons of 2020-2023. What the reason is for this significant increase can only be speculated about and even if an overall increase in population can be a reason, the most probable one would be a change in migratory behaviour driven by for example climate change and/or habitat changes in Russia, but of course these are just guesses and you need data from both the breeding grounds and the wintering areas to get a better understanding of why the numbers have suddenly increased so rapidly here at Põõsaspea.

Jon

Scaup (c) Annika Forsten

Scaup (c) Annika Forsten