One for Malcolm perhaps.
Taken at the weekend at Center Parcs on the boating lake.
Anyone I.D. the duck? I think I have found what it is but need a bit of help in case it isn't :)
Mum with ducklings, one of them trying to eat a fish :)
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Close-up of ducks head
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Great weekend with all the family. Temperature reached 27°C at one point :)
Looks like a tufted duck to me.
What type of fish was it though?!
Sandy,
If you came along to the casting club you'd know a tufted duck female, we've got hundreds there in winter!
Someone will now tell me it's a Wotchamacallit cross
I thought Tufted Duck too but there isn't any tuft :)
The fish I don't know. It could have been a Minnow although there were a lot of silver fish about six inches long swimming about taking bread.
Not a great picture, no polariser :)
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Maybe is a Ferruginous Duck http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferruginous_Duck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferruginous_Duck)
The neck looks too long and there is white around the base of the beak that isn't on a tufty.
Colour of the eye says it's a Tufty,might be a hybrid,but definately of Tufty origin.The fish is , as has been said a Roach.
Could it be a Scaup?
http://www.birdguides.com/iris/pictures.asp?v=1&f=290671
More especially this one (see picture 9 and the beak in 5)
http://www.animalphotos.me/bird3-nzscaup.htm
I know the above are New Zealand birds but it might have been imported :)
Sandy,
I'm sure it's a Tufted duck. Have a look at the fourth picture down
http://www.rampantscotland.com/week/week_aug4.htm
Also a couple from my library showing the colouring and another which has just surfaced so doesn't have the tuft showing. I've probably got one with the neck extended too - somewhere!
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Thanks Malcolm. So it seems my first asumption was right, it is a Tufted Duck :)
I would go with Tufted. A female Scaup is very similar but has a white blaze at beak.
Tight Lines
you do get tufted/scaup hybrids am sure :worms
or
Duffed F*c*s