Why ducks are my favourite wintering birds
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AUTUMN is the time of change not only for birds moving south for the winter, but those birds coming from their breeding grounds in the far north to winter here.
We all have our favourites among wintering birds and mine has to be the wildfowl, namely ducks and geese.
If I really had to choose between these two then it would be the ducks that are now moving into their winter quarters.
With the sea ducks such as eiders and scoters, this is mainly on the coast where large flocks can be seen later in the year.
Some inland lochs, especially the larger ones, attract birds such as the mallard and the wintering ones will mingle with the resident breeders that may be there all the year round.
When one thinks of the numbers of such ducks my thoughts automatically turn to the commonest and that must be the mallard. After all, there are between 17,000 and 43,000 breeding pairs in Scotland, although I am not quite sure why there is such a variation in numbers.
In contrast, there are 100,000 wintering mallard made up of the resident birds and birds that have come from their breeding haunts in Iceland and northern Europe.
These winter migrants are a far cry from the mallard on lochs or ponds where they will take food almost from the hand.
w The mallard that come for the winter are as wild as any ducks and if you come across them it is easy to see the difference in their behaviour.
Choosing the second of the commonest wintering ducks was not easy and when I thought about it I turned to teal. After all, I see flocks of teal in a wide variety of places, a few on inland lochs and rivers, large ones on the firths of the east coast and equally large flocks on the east coast.
However, I would be wrong as the second commonest duck is the wigeon.
It could well be my most favourite of ducks and one of the reasons was a small flock of around 80 birds I used to see on the edge of an island near Lochinver up in the north-west many years ago.
Every time I went past that small island in the winter I would see that flock of wigeon there. They never seemed to vary much in number and I just presumed, therefore, they were never shot at. There was just something about them feeding on the mudflats or resting on the grassy slope that appealed to me.
The wintering wigeon in Scotland can number up to nearly 100,000, about the same number as mallard, although in most years there are more likely around 76,000.
Apart from being a very attractive duck, the call of the males is very evocative and sums up all that is wild for me in the Highlands.
It is a far carrying, rather musical and certainly evocative two-syllable whistle "weee-ooo". In contrast the female wigeon’s call is a rather harsh growl.
From a breeding point of view there are around 400 pairs breeding in Scotland, mainly in the Highlands.
The marked difference in plumage between the female and male wigeon is typical of many of the ducks with the females being drab and generally varying shades of brown.
The main reason for this is camouflage as the birds nest on the ground with incubation carried out by the female. There are plenty of predators more than willing to plunder the eggs, from foxes to stoats and hooded crows to gulls.
So this weekend, why not go in search of these flocks of wigeon that are now arriving in large numbers.
The whistle notes of the males give them away, but if you see a flock in flight then the white wing patches of the older males is also indicative.
The coast is the best place to find them but some lochs are also productive, but wherever they are I hope you find them as attractive and emotive as I do.
Good hunting!
