Odd duck, Filey Dams, Yorkshire UK (2 Viewers)

[stevethehydra]

This was on 21st January. Filey Dams is a small freshwater local reserve about a mile inland from the Yorkshire coast - the kind of place that typically has waders and dabbling ducks. On this occasion there were none of the former (probably because water levels were very high and there was ice at the shallow margins) and plenty of the latter, mostly Teal and Wigeon, a few Mallard, Gadwall and Tufted Duck... and this one odd small diving duck.

It was staying near the furthest back part of the water from the hides, too far for decent photos, so I only got the few very crappy ones here. My observations at the time:

• size somewhat larger than Teal, probably smaller than Tufted duck, definitely smaller than Wigeon
• dark brownish/greyish body, primarily white head, but with a dark patch around/behind(?) the eye - looked almost like a reverse Goldeneye head pattern. The apparently dark mottling on the top/back of the head in the photos wasn't visible to me through bins
• back end sloped down into the water like a Goldeneye, Pochard, Goosander etc, not tail sticking up like Anas sp.
• couldn't really get a clear impression of bill size/shape
• it was diving a lot, and staying down for quite a long time before coming up in a different location, somewhat like a grebe - definitely staying down longer on each dive than the Tufted Ducks.

A couple who were also there were wondering about Smew, but it didn't look much like one to me, unless there's some odd transitional plumage that I'm unaware of. The mostly-white head also made me wonder about a leucistic something, but I don't know what! Any ideas?

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Hi Steve. Looks like a Ling-tailed Duck to me.

Rich

 

[stevethehydra]

If so, that's a lifer and an almost mythical bird for me! Never thought I'd see one on a little freshwater reserve like that, even near the coast!

Looking through Opus, there's a bewildering array of plumages, but this one certainly seems close: Long Tailed Duck

I didn't get an impression of that sort of heavy/deep-based, goldeneye/scoter type bill though?

 

[_pauls]

Hi Steve. Looks like a Ling-tailed Duck to me.

Rich

Or even a long-tailed duck

 

[RichieTwitchy]

Or even a long-tailed duck

Or even the Lung-Tailed duck - can stay underwater for ages

 

[_pauls]

If so, that's a lifer and an almost mythical bird for me! Never thought I'd see one on a little freshwater reserve like that, even near the coast!

Looking through Opus, there's a bewildering array of plumages, but this one certainly seems close: Long Tailed Duck

I've only ever seen two in the UK but went to Iceland last September and they were everywhere - beautiful birds. There seems to be a bit of an influx down the east coast of the UK this winter.

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

Damn my fat fingers🤣

 

[ClarkWGriswold]

If so, that's a lifer and an almost mythical bird for me! Never thought I'd see one on a little freshwater reserve like that, even near the coast!

Looking through Opus, there's a bewildering array of plumages, but this one certainly seems close: Long Tailed Duck

I didn't get an impression of that sort of heavy/deep-based, goldeneye/scoter type bill though?

This one was a little closer in Burghead recently Steve.

 

[dantheman]

Or even the Lung-Tailed duck - can stay underwater for ages

I think we can all be glad we stopped swapping the vowels out to make alternative names at this point ...

 

[Periwinkle]

It's been there since 6th December per Birdguides