Mandarin ducks and pochard

Today, the mandarin ducks of two weeks ago were again present in the old harbour.

The male was standing on a landing. Maybe it had been attracted there by people feeding bread to the many mallards and fewer mallard-domestic duck hybrids, swimming there in the non-frozen part of the water. Like mallards, mandarins eat vegetarian food, though less exclusively so than mallards.

Probably because I came too close, the male mandarin flew off and started swimming with the female.

Also swimming there: two mute swans, more coots than usually in the harbour, moorhens.

Two male and one female tufted duck. And a female pochard, diving not far away from the edge of the ice.

As I leave, male and female mandarin duck are back standing on the landing.

This is a video from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 25 January 2010, of ducks and other birds, including a female common pochard and a male red-crested pochard.

At the cemetery, a male great spotted woodpecker climbing up a tree.

Then, the weather stops being fine. Sleet.

Wood ducks’ nests: here.