A drake Ruddy Duck has made an sudden look in Cheshire and is considered certainly one of few surviving people left in Britain.
The chicken was found by Dan Owen at Woolston Eyes Nature Reserve on Tuesday morning [26 March]. It attracted a gradual crowd of holiday makers in the course of the day, however there was no signal yesterday [Wednesday 27 March], earlier than it reappeared on Thursday [28 March].
It is probably going that the British inhabitants of Ruddy Duck is now solely in single figures. The final publicised sighting concerned a drake at Eyebrook Reservoir in January 2023, so the Cheshire chicken will show fashionable if it reappears.
Many newer birders have by no means seen a Ruddy Duck, with the eradication programme leaving only some people surviving (Dan Owen).
Ruddy Duck cull
An American species, Ruddy Duck turned naturalised in Britain after a number of escaped from the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust headquarters at Slimbridge, Gloucestershire, from 1952.
However, a controversial authorities cull that started quickly after the flip of the century led to six,200 birds (or some 90% of the British inhabitants) being shot by 2009. The eradication programme represented an effort to guard the Spanish White-headed Duck inhabitants from genetic affect resulting from hybridisation with dispersing British Ruddy Ducks.
The species turned more and more difficult to seek out after 2010, with the places of the few surviving people normally suppressed by birders in opposition to the cull or uneasy with their sighting probably resulting in the arrival of Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) shooters.
Former hot-spot
One of the previous strongholds for the species in Cheshire, Woolston Eyes recorded a mighty 179 Ruddy Duck in 1985 and continued to log the species yearly till 2019. Since then, the one different sighting on the reserve concerned a drake in summer season 2022, a chicken which did the rounds at a number of Greater Manchester websites later that 12 months. Local birders have urged the latest arrival would possibly relate to this chicken.
The Woolston chicken is secure from the weapons as a result of web site’s delicate breeding birds and access preparations.
In 2019, finder Dan Owen wrote about birding at Woolston Eyes. The web site presents access via permit.
For all of the latest sightings of Ruddy Duck, go surfing to www.birdguides.com/sightings – or purchase a chicken information subscription to maintain in control with observations nationwide.
