Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
IT'S A QUACKER
Just in case you didn't know, the slightly mad looking, obviously out-of-place duck on the boating lake in Finsbury Park is a Mandarin Duck.
Does anyone know whether this is an escaped zoo duck or a native, and has anyone noticed whether he has a lady friend?
Does anyone know whether this is an escaped zoo duck or a native, and has anyone noticed whether he has a lady friend?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Gaz -eeh-boh has popped a photo into the Harringay online Flickr photo pool of the Finsbury Park Mandarin:
Click on photo to see a bigger version
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Permalink Reply by Lesley Ramm on
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They do live wild in this country now but he may have got lost as usually in at least pairs. female much duller as is usual in ducks. They do look very incongruous though very pretty
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Permalink Reply by Kit on
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Wow - thanks for posting, CML! Remember seeing Mandarin Ducks in a zoo as a child. They got a mention on Bill Oddie's TV show last week: the first ducks were brought to the UK from China by Victorian collectors hungry for exotica. Several escaped captivity over the years, and the RSPB reckons numbers have risen to 7,000 breeding adults, mostly in the south-east. Only the males are glamorous, tufty and orange: the ladies look like standard-issue brown-grey ducks.
Fab fact from Bill Oddie - Mandarin Ducks nest several metres above ground in hollow trees, and when the ducklings hatch, their first step into the big world is a kamikaze leap into the unknown.
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