Wild Wednesday – Tufted duck
The tufted duck (Aythya fuligula) is medium sized, a little smaller than a mallard and is our most common ‘diving’ duck, found throughout the UK on lakes, ponds reservoirs, slow flowing rivers and flooded gravel pits.
Most can be seen all year round with numbers increasing in the winter months due to birds moving to the UK from Iceland and northern Europe, gathering in large flocks.
The UK has a small breeding population of around 18,000 pairs, but during the winter months these are joined by over 100,000 birds from as far away as central Russia.
Males are black and white and have a distinctive tuft of feathers on their head, which can curl down like a ponytail. The females are brown and have a much smaller tuft on their head, with some having a show of white under the tail. Both have a grey beak with a black tip.In flight both display a white stripe across the back of the wing.
They make short dives to feed on waterweed, plant seeds and water insects but often feed from the water surface.
A pair will stay together during the mating season only and like most ducks the male (drake) will have nothing to do with the incubation of the eggs or raising the young. The female (hen) will lay eight to ten eggs during late May in a nest where there is vegetation, often on an island and will sometimes use baskets or nest boxes.
The incubation of the eggs lasts about 25 days. When the ducklings hatch, they are immediately able to swim and dive, and in 50 days, they will be fully grown and are able to fly.
Please visit the Arundel Wetland Centre to see tufted ducks. Last year, a female mallard ‘adopted’ a clutch of tufted ducklings and helped their mother raise them. Wild Co-parents: Mallard mum is helping to raise tufted ducklings at Arundel Wetland Centre (sussexexpress.co.uk)
Read more here: Tufted duck | The Wildlife Trusts