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Muscovy Ducks in Europe... (1 Viewer)

rylirk

rylirk

Well-known member
United Kingdom
I'm trying to get more serious with my birding these last few months, and I've made my life list IOC-compliant. But the question is... what to do with birds such as Muscovy Ducks in Europe? I've seen them (and Black Swans) in a number of countries now... but obviously they aren't native to the region.

So the question is, if I want a 'clean' list, should I take these species off? I'm not sure where one would traditionally draw the line, as there are quite a few edge cases (Salisbury Plain bustards, for example)...
 
I'm afraid Muscovy duck in the UK is nothing more than a feral domestic bird. Although it's your list, your wish to have a "clean" one should mean it's removal. As should Black Swan. I imagine this would also extend to Europe.
The reintroduced Great Bustards are yet to be classified (if ever ) as a truly wild self sustaining bird I believe. A trip to Hungary or Spain would ensure this species on your IOS list.
 
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I was under the impression there were some self-sustaining black swan populations in Eurasia now? I guess my question is when would one of these feral species be recognised at the level of, say, mandarin duck or rose-ringed parakeet?

(Likely a moot point for the sake of my list, the black swans I've seen were in Germany, China and Greece and I dont think those countries have self-sustaining populations)
 
If you're after a 'clean' list, I guess it's best to keep an eye on BOU/BBRC's decisions (or equivalent in other countries) for such species and rarities and follow them.
 
PYRTLE said:
I'm afraid Muscovy duck in the UK is nothing more than a feral domestic bird. Although it's your list, your wish to have a "clean" one should mean it's removal. As should Black Swan. I imagine this would also extend to Europe.
The reintroduced Great Bustards are yet to be classified (if ever ) as a truly wild self sustaining bird I believe. A trip to Hungary or Spain would ensure this species on your IOS list.
Click to expand...

BOURC admitted Muscovy Duck had met its criteria for admission to the British List as Cat C but took Government advice and didn't add it to the list, thus destroying BOURC's credentials as an independent scientific "keeper of the list" and becoming a mere Government poodle.

Since then active measures have been employed to reduce the main Muscovy Duck population in the UK.

Notwithstanding which I don't believe anybody counts it, and BOURC has made it very clear they aren't going to admit it under any circumstances. Although Black Swan pairs breed in various parts of Britain, they are not a coherent, self-sustaining population. They can't be counted, though they might become countable in the future - unless the same thing happens.

John
 
Muscovy is on category C of the Italian list courtesy of a feral population in Northern Italy. I am unaware of any other accepted feral populations but they seemed to be resident on Madeira when I visited this summer.

All the best
 
Feral Muscovy and Black Swan populations in the Netherlands are also accepted as self-sustaining. They are easy to see in several places around Amsterdam, for example.

In my opinion, we live in Anthropocene. Not counting clearly self-sustaining introduced species is fooling oneself about the true situation of nature. It also helps such species to spread while they and their ecological role are willingly overlooked. It does not help conservation, only eradicating them would.
 
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Cannot help you here, the best I could find is that Dutch Birding changed opinion and does not count ANY introduced species, self-sustaining or not (not even Common Pheasant).
 
Is it true that black swan can be a threat to other wildfowl especially young when the swans have a territory in that location and especially with cygnets,? I have personally witnessed black swan with young cygnets in more of a closed but open environment for visitors to see up and close, the adults were particularly protective and aggressive to outsiders and any other wildfowl nearby the environment they were in obviously did not help but I could Imagine even in a more open environment they would be more aggressive than the native mute swan to other wildfowl, In my county people occasionally release black swan in to the area but for me luckily they don,t seem to stay long or perish as in the case of a local lake near to where I live once (but that is not the end result I wanted) many species of birds have been Introduced here over the years and they can usually find a niche and survive as a breeding species I don,t mind that as long as that new species is not a threat to the local species that are either native or Introduced.
 
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I'm sure I read about a self-sustaining population of Muscovy Ducks around Ely, (Cambridgeshire I think). Not that this affects the official acceptance onto the list. But they are said by many to be a self-sustaining population as such.
 
I have never previously heard a suggestion that Muscovy Duck is self-sustaining in the Netherlands. The Dutch list does not contain any categories or self-sustaining species but several species with feral populations are covered in Rare Birds of the Netherlands (1999) and other species are mentioned here:-

https://www.bubo.org/Checklists/ioc-western-palearctic-list.html

On Britain see this thread and the attachment to Steve Dudley's post:-

https://www.birdforum.net/showthread.php?t=166285

It covers some of the history of the Ely population. They were considered to be self-sustaining in a BOU paper but then culled and the position was reconsidered. I cannot recall what has been said in more recent British Birds Non-native Breeding Birds reports.

All the best
 
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