Rust-red rarity stands out from the crowd
Duck numbers are still increasingly steadily on ponds and lakes across the region, a good time to look out for a rarity among the more usual pochards, tufted ducks and wigeon.
A drake ferruginous duck, a vagrant from eastern Europe, has been giving good views from the Nature Lake hide at Pugneys Country Park near Wakefield.
The word ferruginous means the colour of iron rust and this is a good description of the deep mahogany-red colour on the head, breast and flanks of this duck in both sexes but most evident in the drake. He has white eyes and a dark grey bill fading to white and then a black tip at the end, the female has brown eyes.
The most striking feature from a distance is a bright white triangular patch under the tail of both sexes – some female tufted ducks also have this feature but never such and obvious white.
The main breeding populations are found to the north of the Black and Caspian Seas and there are also more widely scattered breeding sites in eastern Europe. They are much rarer further west – they are one of Germany's rarest breeding birds with only one or two pairs a year.
Populations everywhere have plummeted over the past 30 or 40 years due to the twin pressures of habitat loss and hunting.
Ferruginous ducks breed around shallow well- vegetated ponds and lakes and many of these have been lost due to the demands of agriculture for water.
Many move to North Africa for the winter and some as far as West Africa while birds from Russia and the Ukraine move to the Mediterranean or Black Sea. Despite being given international conservation protection they continue to be hunted illegally both in the breeding season and on migration and they are no longer regularly seen in Greece or Italy.
There are claims that Italian hunters are now crossing the Adriatic to Croatia and Serbia to shoot them and avoid the tighter restrictions now being imposed in their own countries.
Of course there are always questions as to where the ferruginous ducks which are seen annuallyin Britain have come from.
They are widely kept in captivity and also hybridise readily with other species so there is no way of telling for certain if the Pugneys bird, or two females present at other English sites are genuinely wild birds that have travelled here across Europe or escapees from collections.
There are no such doubts about the wild originsof smews that arrive here each winter as temperatures fall in Europe.
Three of the elegant black and white drakes are present in the region, at Tophill Low, East Yorkshire and Far Ings and Toft Newton in north Lincolnshire, while a female redhead smew is also at Tophill. Goosander flocksare also increasing with 46 on Pontefract Park lake at the weekend while a female red-breasted merganser continues to be seen at Angler's Country Park near Wakefield.
A juvenile great northern diver is still present there while two others were at Blackmoorfoot reservoir, one at Scammonden Dam and another at Rother Valley County Park. There has been a remarkable influx of mainly juvenile great northern divers at inland waters across England in the past few weeks with six at one site alone, Grafham Water in Cambridgeshire. These are probably birds brought across the Atlantic from North America and Canada while those being seen along the east coast at present including one in Filey this week are likelyto have come herefrom Icelandor Greenland.
A black-throated diver was seen off Filey Brigg on Saturday. Thirty whooper swans were seen at Beningbrough and 13 Bewick's swans at Cleasby, North Yorkshire while five whooper swans have been present at Flamborough Head and a white-fronted goose was at Scalby Lodge Ponds near Scarborough.
tealebill48@yahoo.co.uk
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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
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Sunny spells
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