Baer's Pochards

The Pochard (Aythya ferina) is a medium-sized diving duck. Pochards breed in much of temperate and northern Europe into Asia. They are migratory, and winter in the southern and west of Europe. Their breeding habitat is marshes and lakes with a metre or more water depth.

These are gregarious birds, forming large flocks in winter, often mixed with other diving ducks, such as Tufted Duck, which they are known to hybridise with.

In the British Isles, birds breed in eastern England and lowland Scotland, and in small numbers in Northern Ireland, with numbers increasing gradually. Large numbers overwinter in Great Britain, after retreating from Russa and Scandinavia.

The Pochard is one of the species to which the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbirds (AEWA) applies.

Description:

The adult male has a long dark bill with a grey band, a red head and neck, a black breast, black eyes and a grey back.

The adult female has a brown head and body and a narrower grey bill band. The triangular head shape is distinctive.  Pochards are superficially similar to the closely related North American Redhead and Canvasback.

The Baer's Pochard (Aythya baeri) is a diving duck found in eastern Asia, similar in appearance to the Ferruginous Duck. It breeds in south-east Russia and north-east China, migrating in winter to southern China, Vietnam and India.  The name commemorates the Estonian naturalist Karl Ernst von Baer.

Diet:

Pochard usually feed by diving or dabbling - and often at night. They will upend for food as well as the more characteristic diving. Their staple diet consists of aquatic plants with some molluscs, aquatic insects and small fish.

Ducks generally feed on larvae and pupae usually found under rocks, aquatic animals, plant material, seeds, small fish, snails and crabs. We all enjoy ducks and many of us offer them food to encourage them to come over and stay around - and it works! Who doesn't like an easy meal!

However, the foods that we traditionally feed them at local ponds are utterly unsuitable for them and are likely to cause health problems down the road. Also, there may be local laws against feeding this species of bird - so it's best to check on that rather than facing consequences at a later stage.