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Project Noah Nature School
Aythya fuligula
The Tufted Duck is a medium-sized diving duck found mainly throughout temperate and northern Eurasia. The adult female is brown with paler flanks, a blue-grey bill and a yellow eye. The tuft is less prominent than on the male but well visible here. While mostly diving these ducks can also be seen dabbling, as in the second picture.
The shores of a large Central European lake.
During the sixties, the zebra mussel spread to colonize lakes and rivers in Switzerland. Many ducks, including the tufted duck, got a new source of food as a consequence. Tufted ducks reacted quickly to this new food source and have expanded their wintering area to the southwest of Europe.
Spotted on Dec 7, 2013
Submitted on Dec 8, 2013
1 Comment
on my list of to see!