Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Canvasbacks (Aythya valisineria) reacted to human activity by alert posturing, swimming, diving, or usually by flying. The percentage of time that canvasbacks were disturbed varied weekly but most disturbances of canvasbacks occurred during the first 2 weeks of fall. Scan samples for time-activity budgets were based on observations of ducks sitting on the water, thus percentages reported for disturbance (0.6%) in this paper may be underestimated.