Tufted duck

Scientific Name: Aythya fuligula

Country: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Chad, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Nigeria, North Korea, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Yugoslavia

Continent: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania

Diet: Insects - insectivore, molluscs - molluscivore, flowering plants - forbivore

Food & feeding: Omnivore

Habitats: Freshwater, coast

Conservation status: Not threatened

Relatives: Pochard, torrent duck

Description: The drake is mainly black with a white lower breast and flanks and a long crest or tuft. The female is dark brown with a shorter tuft then the drake. Both sexes have a bright yellow eye. They weigh about 750 g. Tufted ducks are one of the most common diving ducks.

Lifestyle: They dive to a considerable depth (down to 14 m) in search of food such as aquatic creatures and water plants, in the mud and stones. Larger fish or vegetable matter may be brought to the surface to eat. Insects and duckweed floating on the surface are also scooped up.

Family & friends: The males are attentive while the females are nest building and laying and also share in protecting the brood, but do not share the incubation. The drakes tend to collect together in small groups on the open water while the ducks are incubating. Outside the breeding season they gather together in large flocks. They often nest together in large numbers on predator-free islands, sharing such spots with nesting gulls and terns. The aggressive terns may help to drive predators away from the nests of the ducks.

Keeping in touch: These ducks are usually quiet, except in the breeding season when males make a musical whistling call while courting females.

Growing up: They build nests on small islands or near the water's edge, sometimes several pairs nesting close to each other. Nests are made of grass or sedge, lined with down. They lay 8-11 eggs, greenish-buff in colour, which take 25-26 days to hatch. The young fledge six weeks later.

Conservation news: Tufted ducks are one of the most common diving ducks. They are quite tame and have adapted well to man-made lakes, even in busy city parks.

In the last 100 years, tufted ducks have increased in numbers and now occur over a much larger range than before. This seems to be partly due to the increase in the number of man-made lakes - ponds, reservoirs, gravel pits and settling lagoons - that offer ideal feeding habitat for them.