My father called them Butterballs. other folks called them Blue Bills. The lesser scaup is a duck species native to North America. They are diving ducks.
The last time we got into a flight of scaup was a day much like today. A front moving through, low clouds scudding at treetop height. A misting rain. Dad and I were in a blind in the Catahoula swamp and as daylight broke, the scaup started flying. We knocked down our limits in about 15 minutes of shooting, collected the ducks and were walking out of the lake as the other hunt3rs were coming in. This was pre-1980.
I tell you all this because not 15 minutes ago, I was drinking coffee on my back porch and a flight of scaup came over, looking at the lake that is in the center of our subdivision. They made two passes, then departed to the northeast, probably headed for that very same lake that Dad and I hunted in all those years ago.
But, it is time for me to get busy with my day, and shooting ducks has no part in it.
The bay was full of Blue Bills this morning,a spitting rain & a little wind would have been a good shoot but I was after Redheads. Had a bunch of coots in the decoys that I chased off & soon after the Reds came in, got my limit & was having breakfast by 9. We called Buffleheads Butterballs on the east coast.
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