Ruddy shelduck

Voice

Very vocal: a nasal, plaintive and far-carrying aangh or chorr, recalling a foghorn or a Greylag but higher and sharper. It calls throughout the year, especially in flight and in territorial disputes, and also at night over moulting sites.

Identification

The body is uniform rusty orange, the head distinctly paler cream, the bill and legs black. In flight it is startlingly contrasted: large white forewing panels, a green speculum and black primaries and tail. In summer the male shows a narrow black neck ring that the female lacks; females often show a whiter face around the bill base and eye.

Confusion species

Juvenile Shelduck and escaped exotics such as Egyptian Goose cause the confusion. Egyptian Goose is browner, longer-legged and has a dark eye patch and a breast spot; Ruddy Shelduck is plain rusty orange with no markings. Common Shelduck is white with a green head and a chestnut breast band.

Habitat

Open country beside fresh and brackish water: steppe lakes, reservoirs, river mouths, saltmarsh and arable land. Nests in holes, rock crevices, buildings and sometimes rabbit burrows, often far from water. In the Netherlands it uses coastal moulting sites and sand pits, feeding out on grassland and fields.

Range and movements

Breeds from south-east Europe and Turkey to Central Asia, with small populations in North Africa and southern Spain, where it is increasing in Andalusian and La Mancha lagoons. A feral population breeds in north-west Europe, with hundreds to thousands moulting in the Dutch and German Wadden area.

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

Where and when to look

In the Netherlands July and August are best, along the Wadden coast and at large sand pits; look in late afternoon when moulting parties move from the water onto grassland. In Spain the lagoons of Doñana and La Mancha offer the best chances in spring.

Conservation status

The world population is stable to increasing, and the species is expanding in southern Spain. North-west European birds derive from captivity and are managed as an alien, with debate about hybridisation and competition. Genuinely wild vagrants from the east are almost impossible to separate.