Sunday, March 23, 2008

Flavour of the Orient

Mandarin ducks have always been a popular bird in waterfowl collections due to their decroative and brightly coloured plumage. Of the course of time some of these birds have escaped and formed wild populations in the UK. Many of these populations are found in the south of the UK but there appears to be a small stronghold of these wild birds around the north-west of England. There has been a pair of birds on a lake in a local country park which I recently visited. The birds were going through some courtship behaviour and so will no doubt be looking for a suitable tree nest site in the near future.

The less colourful female
and the drake

5 comments:

Anna Simpson said...

Great photographs of the Mandarins, well done. I'll keep checking on your blog it's great.

Stacey Olson said...

Beautiful as usual. reminds me of the harliquin duck. Thanks for sharing!!

Anonymous said...

Superb shots Richard.

I've never seen a female Mandarin before, she has beautiful markings.

Paul.

Rich Steel said...

Thanks for the comments. Harliquin ducks now there is a bird I would like to get before the lens.

Cheers

Rich

The Birdlady said...

Lovely! My favorite is the last, but they are all wonderful. I'll be back to enjoy more of these wonderful images. Thanks!

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