Rise for poor peasant ringing about aquatic bird (8)
I believe the answer is:
dabchick
'aquatic bird' is the definition.
(dabchick is a kind of aquatic bird)
'rise for poor peasant ringing about' is the wordplay.
'rise for' is a reversal indicator (in a down clue, letters go up).
'poor' becomes 'bad' (similar in meaning).
'peasant' becomes 'hick' (informal term for someone who lives in the country).
'ringing' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'about' becomes 'c' (circa abbreviation).
'bad' back-to-front is 'dab'.
'dab'+'hick'='dabhick'
'dabhick' placed around 'c' is 'DABCHICK'.
(Other definitions for dabchick that I've seen before include "Waterbird" , "Small grebe" , "Water bird - little grebe" , "good swimmer and diver" , "diving-bird" .)