Wood Duck Aix sponsa x Common Shelduck Tadorna tadorna hybrid

This pair of birds (I think they were male and female) were brought to my attention by Lynn Morag and had been present on the small loch just off the M9 for a few years. When I visited there were only a small number of wildfowl present and most of those were hybrids - this begs a question as to how they got there - maybe they were unwanted accidents from another collection (many collectors don't like to keep hybrids) donated to the restaurant to entertain their visitors?

This one must have been a male.

male Wood Duck x Common hybrid, River House (Stirling, UK), 29th December 2013

With its more subdued colours and especially head it's tempting to presume the second bird was a female, though I'm not sure we can be completely certain of that.

second Wood Duck x Common hybrid, River House (Stirling, UK), 29th December 2013

For comparison, here are photos of the parent species.

captive Wood Duck, Blakeney Quayside collection (Norfolk, UK), 15th October 2011 and Common Shelduck, Brancaster (Norfolk, UK), 15th March 2006

For more photos of these species follow the links below:

• Wood Duck
• Common Shelduck