White-headed Duck will stay on Category D of the British listing following a overview by of the species’ standing by the British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC).
Species on Category D of the British listing are these the place ‘there may be cheap doubt that they’ve occurred in Britain in a pure state’. This interprets to birds on this class being untickable (birds are tickable on Categories A, B and C).
The BOURC undertook a prolonged evaluation of British data, with the sample and incidence of those in contrast with that in different western European international locations the place extralimital data have been deemed to be of untamed origin, resembling in France and the Netherlands.
Belvide Reservoir, Staffordshire, was as soon as a daily staging floor for moulting Ruddy Duck in early autumn and attracted White-headed Duck now and again – together with this juvenile in September 2003 (Steve Nuttall).
However, the BOURC’s evaluation revealed no apparent hyperlink between the sample of British data and the anticipated sample of occurrences of birds on the Continent and, thus, counsel it’s exhausting to counsel any are definitively wild birds.
The BOURC agreed that the British data have been possible a mix of untamed and escaped captive birds, however a consensus on figuring out a person hen that was wild was not achieved. Hence, the ultimate BOURC vote on the standing of White-headed Duck on the British List was cut up, with six for retention on Category D and 4 for Category A. Following BOURC procedures this majority vote resulted in a call for Category D.
Records of White-headed Duck within the late Nineties and early 2000s, often amongst sizeable Ruddy Duck gatherings, hinted that these have been real migrants, shifting up from Iberia with returning Ruddies (which might transfer from northern and western Europe to Iberia). A major variety of White-headed Duck popped up in 2002-03; a minimum of two (and probably 4) in autumn 2002 noticed as much as three cling round into the next spring, with one other obvious inflow within the late summer time and early autumn of 2003 seeing a minimum of six, and probably a number of extra, seem.
