Ruddy Shelduck Tadorna ferruginea

Although genuinely wild Ruddy Shelducks from their natural range may sometime turn up in western Europe (and certainly have done in the past), the vast majority of records of Ruddy Shelducks here are either escapees from captivity or part of a feral population. The latter is well established in parts of Europe and birds from this feral population must be responsible for a large number of our UK records.

Despite being presented in fieldguides as being easy to identify, a significant proportion of reports of Ruddy Shelduck are in fact misidentified Ruddy Shelduck hybrids, or in a few cases, escaped South African Shelducks. In Norfolk since a few years ago there are a number of Egyptian Goose x Ruddy Shelduck hybrids at large and these can be fairly similar to Ruddy Shelducks. Subtle differences in colour tone and structure may well be missed but these hybrids always (or at least nearly always) show some pink on the legs (if not mostly pink legs). Hybrids with South African Shelducks can be even harder to detect, and it may well be that a lot of captive stock (from which feral stock is descended) are affected by hybridisation with South African or other species of shelduck in their ancestry.

Ruddy Shelducks, Swanton Morley fishing lakes (Norfolk, UK), 1st September 2007

Like the ones above, the following bird is of unknown origin, but its stay overlapped with another bird (further down this page) which bore a blue plastic ring on its leg so was thus of captive origin.

Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 31st March 2013

Ruddy Shelduck, Rawhall gravel pits, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 21st March 2013

A lot of captive and feral Ruddy Shelducks have a variably obvious grey patch on the centre of the crown. I am not clear if this plumage character ever occurs in wild populations that are not affected by hybridisation (judging from a perusal of internet images it seems that it is at least less common in wild populations), or if it is evidence of hybridisation having occurred a few generations back. Alternatively it may be an anomaly that crops up in captive populations as a result of a limited gene pool. In any case, these birds often show absolutely no other evidence of hybridisation so if the grey on the crown does arise as a consequence of a hybridisation event, that event was likely several generations back. I am not therefore describing such birds as hybrids unless there is additional evidence of hybridisation (such as faint dusky vermiculations on the rear scapulars and flanks, as shown by a bird present in the Brecks for a number of years which is widely reported as a pure Ruddy Shelduck; that bird is paired to an Egyptian Goose and this pair may well be the source of the Egyptian Goose hybrids regularly seen around the region).

This individual had a blue plastic ring on its left leg so was of captive origin.

escaped Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 2nd March 2014

escaped Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 6th May 2013

escaped Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 27th May 2013

escaped Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 8th August 2013

escaped Ruddy Shelduck, Beetley (Norfolk, UK), 23rd March 2013

captive Ruddy Shelducks, Blakeney Quay collection (Norfolk, UK), 21st February 2017

captive Ruddy Shelducks, Blakeney Quay collection (Norfolk, UK), 3rd December 2016

captive Ruddy Shelducks, Blakeney Quay collection (Norfolk, UK), 18th January 2017

captive Ruddy Shelducks, St James's Park (London, UK), 16th March 2018

captive Ruddy Shelducks, Grange-over-Sands (Cumbria, UK), 28th December 2011

captive Ruddy Shelducks (with South African Shelduck in last two photos), Grange-over-Sands (Cumbria, UK), 27th December 2012

captive Ruddy Shelduck, Pensthorpe (Norfolk, UK), 9th March 2014

captive Ruddy Shelduck, private collection at Wereham (Norfolk, UK), 16th March 2018

I was assured that these distinctive individuals had their unusual appearance as a result of mutation rather than hybridisation, and a hybrid theory would be hard to reconcile with their appearance as no other shelduck species share some of the characteristics shown by these birds. Apparently this variant is widely known among aviculturalists as the red mutation.

captive 'red-mutation' Ruddy Shelduck, private collection at Wereham (Norfolk, UK), 16th March 2018

These poor photos are the only ones I have of Ruddy Shelducks taken in their natural wild range:

Ruddy Shelducks, Goksu Delta (Turkey), 9th May 2010