Lesser scaup duller and have hardly any white at the bill base. Both sexes have white secondary remiges, a blue-grey bill with a black "nail" at the tip and grey feet; the drakes have a bright yellow iris, while that of females is orange or amber and that of immatures is brown. Downy hatchlings look much like those of related species, with dark brown upperparts and pale buff underparts, chin, supercilium and back spots. These birds are not very vocal, at least compared to dabbling ducks. Hens give the namesake discordant "scaup, scaup" call; in courtship drakes produce weak whistles. Hens vocalize
The Bird Lover the lai develops somewhat differently: instead of a happy ending, the lai ends in tragedy. A "sophisticated rationalization" of the type is found in Chrétien de Troyes's "Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart", where Lancelot appears at Guinevere's heavily barred window and cuts his fingers bending the bars back. In French scholarship, this type is often referred to as ""loiseau bleu"" or "the blue bird", so named for a story by Madame d'Aulnoy. The Bird Lover The Bird Lover, also known as The Prince as Bird, is a type of narrative structure in folklore, no. 432 in the Aarne–Thompson classification