{"id":38811,"date":"2023-06-01T11:27:12","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=38811"},"modified":"2023-06-14T11:37:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T15:37:27","slug":"the-canvasback-still-graces-the-chesapeake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2023\/06\/01\/the-canvasback-still-graces-the-chesapeake\/","title":{"rendered":"The Canvasback Still Graces the Chesapeake"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Male canvasback duck by Ilya Raskin<\/p><\/div>\n

Science writer Cheryl Lyn Dybas and wildlife photographer Ilya Raskin visited Maryland DNR biologist Donald Webster along the Chesapeake in January 2020. Webster and his colleagues annually count canvasbacks and other wintering waterfowl on the Bay.<\/em><\/p>\n

They came back,\u201d says biologist Donald Webster. \u201cThis year.\u201d His voice has a wistful note, wondering if the king of ducks, as the beautiful, crimson-headed canvasback is known, will return to rule Chesapeake Bay winter after winter.<\/p>\n

Bundled in parka, gloves, and hat, Webster, Waterfowl Habitat Biologist for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, raises his binoculars near a seawall at the confluence of the Chesapeake and the Choptank River in Cambridge, Maryland. The overlook is a mecca for wintering canvasbacks and other ducks. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the U.S. and one of the most productive waterbodies in the world, attracting myriad waterfowl species.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanvasbacks, the ducks everyone comes to see, are usually here in force by Christmas, sometimes by Thanksgiving,\u201d Webster says. \u201cThey stay through early to mid-March, then they\u2019re gone, heading north to nesting grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this January morning with calm winds and temperatures that hover just above freezing, the canvasbacks\u2019 red heads stand out in winter-dark waters. Chesapeake skies fill with migrating ducks \u2013 canvasbacks, buffleheads, greater and lesser scaup, and many others \u2013 from December through March.<\/p>\n

The ducks glide near the seawall, where photographers jostle for the quintessential shot of an iconic Chesapeake species. \u201cThis place is known as the \u2018wall of shame,\u2019\u201d laughs Webster, \u201cbecause it\u2019s almost too easy to get great canvasback pictures here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

By Ilya Raskin<\/p><\/div>\n

The Bay is the Atlantic Coast\u2019s most important waterfowl migration and wintering area. The Chesapeake and its 19 major tributaries offer refuge to 24 species of ducks as well as Canada geese, greater snow geese, and tundra swans.<\/p>\n

\u201cLong-term worsening of the Bay\u2019s water quality, however, and loss of habitat, especially the underwater grasses so many of these birds depend on, have contributed to declines in wintering waterfowl populations,\u201d says Webster.<\/p>\n

Duck Feast to Famine<\/strong>
\nThrough the Bay\u2019s history, these grasses known as submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) have foundered and flourished. Canvasbacks and other waterfowl species have done the same. As recently as 1950, half the continent\u2019s population of canvasbacks \u2013 more than a quarter million \u2013 wintered in the Chesapeake, relying on aquatic grasses as favored food sources.<\/p>\n

During Colonial times, as many as 1 million of the ducks may have spent wintertime on the bay. In the 19th century, their abundance and, to many, good taste made them a favored selection in many East Coast restaurants, says Matt Kneisley, regional director for the Northeast Atlantic Flyway at Delta Waterfowl, a waterfowl conservation and hunting organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanvasbacks were a favored quarry because their meat was considered the tastiest of all the ducks due to their consumption of wild celery,\u201d writes Guy Baldassarre in the 2014 edition of Ducks, Geese and Swans of North America.<\/p>\n

Adds Kneisley, \u201cLarge beds of wild celery once attracted thousands of the ducks to Susquehanna Flats and elsewhere on the upper Bay.\u201d Then a decline in the Chesapeake\u2019s water quality greatly reduced the amount of wild celery. Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972, which was devastating to SAV, was the final blow. \u201cAfter the storm, wild celery was virtually impossible for canvasbacks to find,\u201d says Kneisley.<\/p>\n

The ducks switched their foraging efforts to small clams on the Chesapeake\u2019s shallow bottom. A less nutritious diet of such shellfish as Baltic clams, scientists believe, may affect the ducks\u2019 winter survival rates.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

By Ilya Raskin<\/p><\/div>\n

A Common Future<\/strong>
\nHalf a century ago, 4 to 5 million ducks, geese, and swans spent time on Chesapeake Bay during the winter. Now, that number is less than 1 million, according to results from an annual midwinter waterfowl survey. The nationwide count has taken place every year since the 1950s.<\/p>\n

Survey teams of biologists from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fly transects to make visual estimates of waterfowl along the Chesapeake and the nearby Atlantic coast. In 2023, the teams counted 632,200 ducks, geese and swans, slightly higher than the 627,000 birds observed in 2020, says Webster. (There was no survey in 2021 due to COVID-19 constraints, and DNR biologists consider the 2022 results an outlier for diving ducks due to late-arriving winter weather.) The best recent year was 2018, at 1,023,300.<\/p>\n

Estimates of canvasbacks in 2023 were 57,800, and in 2020, 46,900. In 1955, by comparison, 225,450 canvasbacks were sighted. Nonetheless, says Webster, \u201cthis is still one of the best places on Earth to see waterfowl in winter, and as they migrate during fall and spring.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a>

By Ilya Raskin<\/p><\/div>\n

Is Past Prologue?<\/strong>
\nRising global temperatures may result in more frequent and severe droughts in the prairie pothole region, with devastating effects on breeding ducks.
\nWebster has witnessed the result in Chesapeake Bay.<\/p>\n

\u201cDecades ago,\u201d he says, \u201cthe Chesapeake was full of wintering canvasbacks. But no more. I\u2019d like to see the days again when their dark red heads stretched as far as you can see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canvasbacks and the many other ducks that winter on the Bay have come a long way to get there, Webster says. \u201cThe least we can do is show them some hospitality by making sure their environment \u2013 including their wintering and breeding grounds \u2013 is healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otherwise, he says, the Chesapeake\u2019s waterfowl spectacle may vanish, the seawall along the Choptank indeed becoming a wall of shame as the last canvasback\u2019s wing beats fade into silence.<\/p>\n

dnr.maryland.gov\/wildlife<\/em><\/p>\n

Cheryl Lyn Dybas<\/strong> is a science writer based in Alexandria, Virginia. This article is an updated version of a story that previously ran in Oceanography magazine. Article appears in Vol. 26, No. 2 of the Maryland Natural Resource magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Science writer Cheryl Lyn Dybas and wildlife photographer Ilya Raskin visited Maryland DNR biologist Donald Webster along the Chesapeake in January 2020. Webster and his colleagues annually count canvasbacks and other wintering waterfowl on the Bay. They came back,\u201d says biologist Donald Webster. \u201cThis year.\u201d His voice has a wistful note, wondering if the king  Read the Rest…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[3168,3635,3030],"class_list":["post-38811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wildlife","tag-magazine","tag-natural-resource-magazine","tag-waterfowl"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/174"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38817,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38811\/revisions\/38817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}