Tufted duck
| Tufted duck | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tufted Duck ( Aythya fuligula ), ♂ and ♀ Duck |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Aythya fuligula | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
.jpg)
_-Ystad-2016.jpg)
The Tufted Duck ( Aythya fuligula ) is a bird art from the family of ducks . It is one of the so-called diving ducks and is the most common freshwater diving duck . It is a relatively small, compact duck. The relatively short beak and the conspicuously round head are striking. The males have a long, drooping forelock at the back of the head. The female has a short hollow .
The tufted duck is a common breeding and annual bird in Central Europe. The main area of distribution is in east and south-central Europe. In all of Central Europe, however, it is a frequent moulting guest and can be observed as a pull-through or as a winter guest. It is one of the species whose population is increasing and increasingly spreading west.
features
Appearance of adult tufted ducks
Tufted ducks are between 40 and 47 centimeters long. In both sexes, the control springs are matt black. The hand wings are gray, but all feathers have a black tip. The outer four to five feathers of the hand wings also have black outer edges. Except for the feather base and the tips, the outer flags of the inner hand wings are white, so that a white wing band can be seen in flight.
Females, who need better camouflage for breeding, have a more brownish flank. The yellow glowing eye is noticeable in both sexes. Males in splendid black dress with strikingly white flanks. Males in plain dress and females dark brown with slightly lightened flanks. Some females with a white beak base, similar to the female scupper. Youth dress lighter, browner than females. Sociable, on the water and in flight mostly in tightly packed groups.
voice
Tufted ducks are mostly mute ducks. Excited males occasionally call out a muffled trill that falls in pitch and sounds like pit piu pit pit . The females respond with a hard crook .
Appearance of chicks and fledglings
The chicks of the tufted duck have very dark down plumage. It is mostly black-brown. Only on the middle of the chest and the middle of the abdomen are some white-yellow to green-yellow markings. The sides of the face are yellowish, but tinted with soot. A dark streak of eyes runs through the eye. In some of the chicks, the chin, throat and sides of the neck are the same color as the face. The iris is gray-blue in newly hatched chicks. They also have a dark olive-brown upper beak with a dark nail that initially still has the white egg tooth. The lower bill is flesh-colored. The legs and feet are olive gray. The webbed feet, on the other hand, are darker. In growing young tufted ducks, the beak turns blue-gray. The iris of almost full-fledged tufted ducks is pale yellow.
Distribution and existence
The breeding area of the tufted duck ranges from the temperate climatic zone of Western and Central Europe and the boreal zone of Scandinavia to Eastern Siberia. The southern border of the distribution area runs through Switzerland and Hungary as well as through central Russia in Central Europe.
In Germany , western Poland , France , the Benelux countries and on the coasts around the North Sea they can be found all year round, in Hungary , Eastern Europe , Scandinavia and Iceland they breed in summer, and many spend on the coasts around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea Animals the winter.
Tufted ducks, coming from the east and north, immigrated to Central Europe in the 18th century . The tufted duck expanded its area again to the west in the course of the 20th century. She first appeared in Iceland in 1895. It has been a breeding bird in France since 1964. It first settled in Holland in 1904 and has been relatively common since 1941. In Scandinavia it was originally limited to the far north, but in the course of the 20th century it conquered the more southern regions. The causes of this area expansion are complex: the Tufted Duck has strongly certain of the spread, as invasive species to be regarded zebra mussels benefits. Another reason for the increase in populations in Western Europe is the draining of the steppe lakes in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. However, the fact that the tufted duck benefits greatly from backwater, such as that formed in northern and western Europe in the course of the 20th century, may play a bigger role. Mild winters, which led the tufted duck to persevere in Central Europe, shorter migration routes, better nutritional conditions in breeding and moulting waters due to increasing water eutrophication, for example due to an intensive fishing industry, also play a role.
Since the 1990s, stagnation or even a regional decline has been observed in some long-occupied breeding areas. This applies to the Czech Republic, Brandenburg and Thuringia, Ireland and the European part of Russia. In contrast, area expansions continue to take place in Poland and on the west and south-west edges of the distribution area. In Poland, Switzerland and Baden-Württemberg, strong population growth can still be observed. In many regions the proportion of non-breeders in the total population is increasing. The world population is estimated at 2.6 to 3.1 million individuals. In Europe there are between 730,000 and 880,000 individuals, of which about sixty percent live in the European part of Russia and another twenty-five percent in Fennoscandinavia . There are around 55,000 to 87,000 breeding pairs in Central Europe. There are also some important moulting centers of this kind in Central Europe. Up to 60,000 individuals can be found in the Markermeer and up to 11,300 individuals in the Ismaning reservoir .
Habitat and way of life
The habitat of the tufted duck are lakes and rivers. She is one of the medium-deep divers, dives with an elegant swing and stays under water for an average of 15 seconds. The tufted duck needs deeper and stronger oligotrophic waters than, for example, the pochard . Tufted ducks can also be found in the wild in many urban parks. The courtship starts at the beginning of November. The courtship repertoire includes shaking the head and nodding the head.
The tufted duck often builds nests on reeds. They prefer islands, but also build nests in the bog grass. It is not uncommon for tufted ducks to breed in colonies of gulls and terns. The noisy and aggressive neighbors make it unnecessary to carefully hide the nest. A small part of the population also breeds in small colonies made up only of tufted ducks.
The breeding season depends on the distribution area. In the southern parts of the distribution area, tufted ducks start breeding in mid-April. In the northern regions, however, the breeding season does not begin until the end of June. The nest is built by the female alone. A clutch usually consists of five to 12 gray-green eggs. However, clutches have also been observed in which a single female laid 18 eggs. The clutch can be even larger if more than one female uses the nest to lay eggs. At 58.3 × 40.8 millimeters, the eggs are relatively large for a duck of this size.
Only the female breeds; it begins with the brood as soon as the last egg of the clutch is laid. If the female leaves the clutch, she covers it with down. The incubation period is between 23 and 28 days. The chicks flee the nest and are quickly led to the nearest body of water by the female parent bird. You can dive within a few hours. The young birds fledge after about 45 to 50 days. They are often already independent of their mother bird beforehand.
food
The tufted duck feeds about 60% on mussels and snails, about 30% on other small animals and insects and about 10% on plants. Mollusks play a particularly important role in winter food. Lakes populated with triangular clams are the preferred winter quarters for this species of duck. Due to its flat and wide beak, it can hold larger and medium-sized pieces, while golden-bellied ducks with their significantly smaller beak can at best pick up small specimens of the triangular clams. Tufted ducks are able to eat food even at night. They then sift through the muddy and soft soil of the lakes for tubificids and chironomids with their beak.
When looking for food, it dives up to four meters deep. Tufted ducks not only dive, but also find their food chattering and pounding. The bird's brood feeds exclusively on insects.
Tufted ducks as ornamental poultry
Tufted ducks have long been kept as ornamental fowl because of their attractive appearance, their agility and their ease of keeping. As early as the 17th century, they were kept on the ponds in the parks around Versailles and in London . However, there is no written evidence of their first breeding in human care until 1848, when the first pair of chicks successfully raised in the London Zoo.
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hans-Heiner Bergmann; Hans-Wolfgang Helb; Sabine Baumann; The voices of the birds of Europe - 474 bird portraits with 914 calls and chants on 2,200 sonograms , Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-89104-710-1 , p. 64
- ^ Roy Brown, John Ferguson, Michael Lawrence, David Lees: Federn, traces and signs of the birds of Europe , 3rd edition, Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-89104-666-9 , p. 214
- ↑ a b c d Collin Harrison and Peter Castell: Field Guide Bird Nests, Eggs and Nestlings. HarperCollins Publisher, 2002 revised edition, ISBN 0-007-13039-2 , p. 75.
- ↑ a b Gooders and Boyer, p. 98
- ↑ Bauer et al., P. 116
- ↑ Bauer et al., P. 116
- ^ Bauer et al., P. 115
- ↑ Bauer et al., P. 116
- ↑ Jiri Mlikovsky, Karel Buric: The tufted duck . In: The New Brehm Library . tape 556 . A. Ziemsen Verlag, 1983, ISSN 0138-1423 , p. 78 .
- ↑ Rutschke, p. 38
- ↑ Rutschke, p. 38
- ↑ Carbone et al: Adjustments in the diving time budgets of tufted duck and pochard: is there evidence for a mix of metabolic pathways? In: Animal Behavior 51 (6) 1257-1268, 1996
literature
- Hans-Günther Bauer, Einhard Bezzel and Wolfgang Fiedler (eds.): The compendium of birds in Central Europe: Everything about biology, endangerment and protection. Volume 1: Nonpasseriformes - non-sparrow birds. Aula-Verlag Wiebelsheim, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-89104-647-2 .
- T. Bartlett, Ducks And Geese - A Guide To Management , The Crowood Press, 2002, ISBN 1-85223-650-7
- John Gooders and Trevor Boyer: Ducks of Britain and the Northern Hemisphere , Dragon's World Ltd, Surrey 1986, ISBN 1-85028-022-3
- Hartmut Kolbe; Die Entenvögel der Welt , Ulmer Verlag 1999, ISBN 3-8001-7442-1
- Erich Rutschke: The wild ducks of Europe. Biology, ecology, behavior. Aula, Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 3-89104-449-6 .
Web links
- Aythya fuligula in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2008. Posted by: BirdLife International, 2008. Accessed January 31 of 2009.
- Videos, photos and sound recordings for Aythya fuligula in the Internet Bird Collection
- Tufted duck feathers