Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid

Ferruginous Duck Aythya nyroca x Common Pochard Aythya ferina hybrid

Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid (with Common Pochards), Holkham Park Lake (Norfolk, UK), 7th February 2016

Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid, Holkham Park Lake (Norfolk, UK), 2nd January 2017

This hybrid is responsible for a few erroneous claims of Ferruginous Duck in the UK. Some can apparently be more similar to Redhead in appearance but most drakes seem to be more straightforward to separate from any pure species.

Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid (with Common Pochards and Tufted Ducks), Martham Broad (Norfolk, UK), 29th November 2009

This Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid turned up with a Ferruginous Duck, although the purity of that was not universally agreed. Below the hybrid is the rear bird in the first two photos and the right hand bird in the last two photos.

Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid (with Ferruginous Duck), Cockshoot Broad (Norfolk, UK), 12th November 2011

This was an unexpected find, a bird associating with Common Pochards and Tufted Ducks. The Ferruginous Duck influence wasn't immediately obvious to me in the field and I started off thinking it might be Common Pochard x Tufted Duck. Its dark brown colouration, not dissimilar to Tufted Duck and its lack of reddish tones to suggest Ferruginous Duck set me off in that direction. But female Common Pochard x Tufted Duck tends to look greyer on the body and to have an obvious pale patch at the base of the bill - or at least some of them do - so it warranted a closer look. The pure white under the tail separated from the brown flanks by a thick dark division was Ferruginous-like and although the head and bill profile mainly recalled Pochard, the head shape at times looked quite Ferruginous-like. And on closer inspection there was some ferruginous tones on the head, especially the face that was a touch paler and redder than the rest of the head. In flight it showed a paler, whiter wing-bar than the accompanying Pochards, but not as white overall as Tufted Duck. The shape of the wing-bar was like that of Pochard. Poor light meant I had to use a high ISO setting and the photos are grainy making the bird appear a little paler on the body than it really looked in life.

Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid (with Eurasian Wigeon, Common Pochards and Tufted Ducks), Burnham Overy (Norfolk, UK), 14th March 2015

This last bird made me revisit the identification of a bird I saw in Cornwall in November 2013. I'd been through a similar process when I saw that bird, presuming the brown colour lacking red tones pointed to Tufted Duck rather than Ferruginous Duck. In some ways it looked a lot like the Burnham Overy bird above, but it lacked the clear pointers to Ferruginous Duck heritage. Unlike the Burnham bird, the undertail area wasn't particularly white, there was even less reddish colour on the head (but a little does seem to be visible in the photos) and the head shape was less clearly reminiscent of Ferruginous Duck (to me at least). At the time of observation and even after processing the photos, I identified it as Pochard x Tufted Duck. Joern could see Ferruginous Duck in the structure and straight away asked whether it might have Ferruginous Duck in it... and I eventually started coming round to that idea!

The Cornwall bird showed quite a similar wing-bar to the Norfolk bird above and similar body tones. The bill was more uniform dark, so more like Ferruginous Duck than the more Pochard-like bill of the bird above. Most of the female Pochard x Tufted Duck hybrids I have seen (which isn't many) have shown a more Pochard-like body (with obvious grey) and a much paler face than this bird.

possible Ferruginous Duck x Common Pochard hybrid (with Tufted Duck and Common Pochard), Gwithian Sands (Cornwall, UK), 17th November 2013