Mandarin duck

Voice

Silent for a duck. The displaying drake gives a short, rising whistle, hweek, while the female flushes with a sharp, plaintive ket. Heard mainly from March to May among small display parties on woodland ponds, and from females calling their ducklings together on the water.

Identification

The drake is unmistakable: orange whiskers, a maroon breast with white bars and two upright orange sail feathers on the back. The female is grey-brown with a white eye-ring drawn out behind into a fine pencil line, crisp white teardrops along the flanks and a grey bill with a pale nail. Eclipse drakes resemble females but keep the red bill.

Confusion species

Only the female causes trouble, and then with female Wood Duck. That bird shows a broad, teardrop-shaped eye patch and a scaly, diffusely blotched breast, while Mandarin has a narrow eye stripe and sharply defined flank spots. The bill nail is pale on Mandarin and dark on Wood Duck.

Habitat

Sheltered fresh water with overhanging trees: park lakes, old estate ponds, wooded streams and willow-lined ditches. Nests in tree holes and boxes, sometimes high above the water and well back from the bank. Outside the breeding season in small parties on quiet pools, rarely on large open water.

Range and movements

Native to eastern Asia, from south-east Russia through China to Japan. Every European bird descends from escaped collection stock, and Britain holds the largest population. In the Netherlands feral birds breed on estates and along stream valleys, concentrated on the Veluwe and in Twente. In Spain only scattered escapes occur.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• Migration direction
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

April is the month: pairs sit early in the morning on branches over the water or along the edge of a park lake. Walk quietly past shaded banks and watch overhanging willows, since the birds sit tight in shadow and flush late. Scan upwards for tree holes with a bird in the entrance.

Conservation status

The feral European population is slowly increasing and the species is not regarded as damaging, since it barely competes with native ducks. In its native East Asian range it is declining through felling of mature riverside broadleaf forest, loss of nest holes and continuing trapping for the cage-bird trade.