Mandarin ducks on the lam have lots of fans
It is hard to lay low if you are a Mandarin duck trying to mind your own business dabbling around Metro Vancouver parks.
Native to East Asia, the ducks are a popular ornamental waterfowl species among bird fanciers, but can be difficult to keep in captivity.
And with a bright red bill and flashy colourful plumage on the males, it is hard for them to fly under the radar when they do make a break for freedom, like the ones that have made appearances in recent months in Burnaby and Vancouver.
The more recent sighting was at Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park in early October, according to a brief discussion thread on Birding B.C.’s Lower Mainland message board. That one was described as a juvenile Mandarin duck.
However, a lone Mandarin duck at Burnaby Lake has become quite the local celebrity since it first showed up in early May, according to local birders.
“It’s quite a hit at Burnaby Lake there,” said local wildlife photographer Tamara Sale. “Photographers line up taking pictures of it.”
Sale first saw the duck in June, before it had moulted, then again in October after it had grown its more dandy adult feathers.
“I thought it (was) a very unusual, colourful bird,” said Sale, who learned its species name from another birder upon first seeing it at the park.
“What the heck was it doing here?” Sale said, who guessed that it was perhaps released by someone at the park.
The appearance of a Mandarin duck in New York’s Central Park sparked a similar bout of enthusiasm, including a story in the New York Times in which reporter Julia Jacobs remarked that it “should not be in the middle of Manhattan.
“And yet, against all odds, he is here. And he is dazzling,” Jacobs wrote.
It is likely that the Vancouver ducks made breaks from someone keeping them, said Edward James, an avid birder who also has numerous photographs of Burnaby Lake’s Mandarin duck, taken earlier this year.
“It’s assumed to be an escapee, although some birders say there used to be a feral population in the Lower Mainland,” said James, in a Facebook messenger exchange about his sightings.
While it hasn’t qualified for a B.C. rare-bird alert, James said this Mandarin duck has attracted the attention of birders from as far away as Vancouver Island who have come to see it.
“The Mandarin at Burnaby Lake has to be the single most photographed bird there this year,” said James, a dual Canadian/Norwegian citizen who is now back in Norway.
The duck has shown up multiple times in the Facebook posts of local photographers and made it into the summer edition of the Burnaby Lake Park Association newsletter, said local birder Bill Miller.
“It’s quite an amazing looking bird,” said Miller, who has seen it many times hanging around with wood ducks, a close North American cousin to the Mandarin, and has hundreds of his own photos.