Greater scaup days. The down-covered ducklings are able to follow their mother in her search for food immediately after hatching. Greater scaup eat aquatic molluscs, plants, and insects, which they obtain by diving underwater. They form large groups, called "rafts", that can number in the thousands. Their main threat is human development, although they are preyed upon by owls, skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, and humans. Greater scaup populations have been declining since the 1980s; however, they are still listed as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List. The genus name "Aythya" is derived from the Ancient Greek "aithuia" which
What Bird is That? all-time best seller in Australian natural history and is still in print today. While sales and stature of Cayley’s original collection continued to grow, the prolific artist and ornothologist Cayley was working on a much more ambitious project – his so-called “big bird book”. From about 1918, he was creating illustrations of subspecies, plumage stages and eggs (now lost) of all known Australian birds. The project was incomplete at the time of his death in 1950, although the illustrations were all but finished. The ornithologist Terence Lindsey revived Cayley’s plans in the 1980s, creating the last and most significant revision