A quacking little visitor

POPPING down to your local river, stream, pond or canal, especially this passage migration and winter season, you may catch sight of a fair number of ducks.

Winter sees an influx to our shores, and species that already live here become far more numerous.

The little duck we are going to talk about today swells their numbers by three and-a-half times during the winter months and these calm, tame creatures are a common sight.

So let’s take our hats off to the tufted duck, and discover the unusual reasons for their spread.

It is an incredibly recognisable little duck. The females are an all-over chocolate brown colour, while the males are more distinct. A shiny black head and body with bright white sides and a white strip down their wing, visible in flight but otherwise hidden.

The male sports a “tuft” of feathers on top of the head which usually lies flat. Both sexes (although the male’s is brighter) have a blue beak with a black tip and golden eyes.

They have been known as a tufted duck since the 17th century, but as you all know by now most of our birds have different names in different counties. Black poker, dovver, magpie diver and blue neb are just some.

Blue neb is particularly interesting as it refers to the beak. “Nebb” is the oldest-recorded word in the English language for beak.

Their scientific name translates roughly to “soot-throated sea bird”.

Historically these ducks were almost exclusively northern birds and to this day they still mostly only visit Wales in the winter.

However, now more than ever they have spread over most of England all year round. There are two strange reasons for this. The first is gravel. Our desire for digging up gravel and abandoning old pits and letting them fill up with rain led to the creation of perfect preferred nesting spots.

The other reason is an invasive species. We accidentally brought over an invader on our ships. In 1824 the first Zebra mussels were discovered in London, a creature that normally lives in Ukraine.

These molluscs rapidly spread through our waterways, the perfect meal for our ducks.