Duck under cover – the shy garganey
Many ducks migrate between breeding and wintering grounds in Europe, but the garganey is the only one to visit our region in summer.
This duck, slightly larger than the teal, starts arriving in this country in March, having already paired up in the winter flocks in West Africa where 200,000 have been counted on the Senegal Delta, and up to 480,000 on the Niger Delta.
Some 130 pairs, including no more than eight across Yorkshire, are thinly distributed throughout the United Kingdom, with
the Ouse Washes, in Cambridgeshire, their main national stronghold, and North Duffield Carrs and Weldrake Ings, in the Lower Derwent valley between York and Selby, the most regular sites for them in our region. They are also seen each summer at the Fairburn Ings reserve, near Castleford.
Garganey can be difficult to observe as they stay close to the vegetation at the edges of wetlands and are also very shy, flying off at the slightest disturbance. They are on the edge of their European breeding range in this country but have benefited from the increasing number of managed wetland sites.
The males, with their brilliant white half-moon-shaped eyebrows, are easy to identify; the females are less easily told apart from female teals.
The female garganey has a larger bill than the teal and a distinctive face pattern with a dark supercilium and pale spot at the base of the bill which is grey without an orange base.
The males have a strange call, like a creaking dry rattle, which was once thought to resemble the sound produced by some species of grasshopper. As a result, in some parts of southern England the garganey was once known as the cricket teal.
When calling or displaying, the drake will lean so far backwards that his crown touches his lower back and his bill points almost upwards, presumably to show off his white eyebrow stripe to maximum effect.
Two garganey were reported at Wheldrake Ings over the weekend while others were seen at Fairburn Ings and Blacktoft Sands.
The Bank Holiday weekend saw a movement of black terns across the region as they migrated back to European marshland breeding sites, while two little gulls were seen at Blacktoft Sands and six at Pugney's Country Park, near Wakefield.
A woodchat shrike was seen in a horse paddock at the village of North Anston, near Sheffield, on Bank Holiday Monday while another was seen at Spurn on Thursday.
A red-rumped swallow, raven, two hooded crows and a grey-headed wagtail were among other birds seen at Spurn, while another grey-headed wagtail was seen at Scalby Lodge Ponds, near Scarborough. A drake green-winged teal continued to be seen at Kilnsea, while inland, a female long-tailed duck was present at Weel fishing ponds, near Beverley. On Saturday, a black kite was reported near Filey.
A first-year male sub-Alpine warbler was seen at Brotton, Cleveland.
Up to nine dotterels were present on Pendle Hill, in Lancashire, and eight on Danby Beacon, North Yorkshire, regular stopping points for "trips" of this lovely wader as it heads to upland breeding sites.
Five whimbrels have been present in a field near the hide at North Duffield Carrs.
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Weather for Yorkshire
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: North
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 23 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
