Latin: Aythya valisineria
Average length: M 21", F 20"
Average weight: M 2.7 lbs., F 2.5 lbs.

Description: Male canvasbacks have a chestnut red head and neck, a black breast, grayish back, black rump, and blackish brown tail. The sides, flank, and belly are white while the wing coverts are grayish and vermiculated with black. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. The iris is bright red in the spring, but duller in the winter. Female canvasbacks have a light brown head and neck, grading into a darker brown chest and foreback. The sides, flanks, and back are grayish brown. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray.

Breeding: Canvasbacks breed in the prairie pothole region of North America. They prefer to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by emergent vegetation, such as cattails and bulrushes, which provide protective cover. Other important breeding areas are the sub-arctic river deltas in Saskatchewan and the interior of Alaska. Female canvasbacks lay an average of 10 eggs and female redheads often parasitize their nests.

Migrating and Wintering: Canvasbacks migrate through the Mississippi Flyway to wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic United States and the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV), or the Pacific Flyway to wintering grounds along the coast of California. Historically, the Chesapeake Bay wintered the majority of canvasbacks, but with the recent loss of submerged aquatic vegetation in the bay, their range has shifted south towards the LMAV. Brackish estuarine bays and marshes with abundant submergent vegetation and invertebrates are ideal wintering habitat for canvasbacks.

Population: The canvasback population is continuing to rebound from the low levels experienced in the late 1980s and early '90s caused by loss of breeding/wintering habitat and lead poisoning due to ingestion of spent shot while feeding (this threat should gradually disappear with the lead shot ban). The 2001 breeding population survey was 580,000 ducks, an 18% decrease from last year's estimate, but above the North American Waterfowl Management Plan target population of 540,000.

CLICK HERE to listen to a sound clip of a Canvasback.

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